2023: Court Dismisses Suit Challenging Atiku’s Eligibility To Contest For Presidency

A suit seeking to challenge the eligibility of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in 2019, Atiku Abubakar has been dismissed by a Federal High Court, Abuja.

Justice Inyang Ekwo while ruling on the suit on Monday noted that the grounds that the plaintiff instituted the case lacked the locus standi (legal right) to do so.

The plaintiff was described by Justice Ekwo as a “busy body and meddlesome interloper.”

A group, Incorporated Trustees of Egalitarian Mission for Africa, in a suit marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/177/2019 had sued Atiku, the People’s Democratic Party, the Independent National Electoral Commission and the Attorney General of the Federation as 1st to 4th respondents respectively.

The EMA challenged the eligibility of the former Vice President to contest for the presidency on the grounds that he was not a Nigerian citizen by birth.

The group asked the court to hold, among others, that considering the provisions of Sections 25(1) &(2) and 131(a) of the constitution and the circumstances surrounding the former vice president’s birth, he cannot contest for the top office.

The Adamawa State Government, through its Attorney-General (AG), had on July 27, 2021, sought an order of the court to be joined in the suit.

The court, in the motion dated April 26 and filed June 24, granted the prayer of the AG of Adamawa to be joined in the case as the 5th defendant.

The state government had told the court that the presidential candidate of the PDP in 2019 was eligible to contest for the highest political office.

It noted that Atiku is from Adamawa and had been elected as a governor of the state in 1999 and served as the vice president of the country between 1999 to 2007.

It stated that the suit threatened the right of not just the ex-vice president to contest the office of the president “but that of the citizens of Nigeria, of Adamawa origin covering 12 out of the 21 Local Government Areas in the state.”