Supreme Court Takes Decision On APC’s Petition Against Gov Mbah Of Enugu State

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the petition filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate in the last governorship election in Enugu State, Uche Nnaji challenging the victory of Governor Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

A five-member panel of the apex court in its ruling on Friday ruled that the legal team of the APC and Nnaji filed an invalid brief of argument and failed to convince the court with a concrete reason why the appellants’ incompetent brief should be allowed.

The APC candidate, who polled a total of 14,575 votes in the election and came a distant fourth, wants the court to disqualify Mbah who won with 160,895 votes, as well as the Labour Party candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, and that of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Frank Nweke Jr who were all ahead of him.

He argued through his lawyers that the candidates were not qualified to contest the election, having allegedly run foul of the asset declaration law among other claims.

However, according to the lead judgment of the Supreme Court by Justice Tijani Abubakar, the appellants’ brief was found to be invalid, and the invalidity also affected the appeal in respect of which the appeal was filed.

He therefore dismissed the brief and appeal filed by the appellants.

It would be recalled that Justice K.M Akano of the Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal had on June 20, 2023, dismissed the appeal filed by Nnaji.

Not satisfied, Nnaji approached the court of appeal, Enugu Division, praying it to send the dismissed petition back to the Tribunal for hearing and determination of the suit but the appellate court upheld the decision of the Tribunal and dismissed the suit.

The court also awarded the sum of N250,000 each against Nnaji and the APC.