The Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the nomination of Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the June 20 governorship election.
The apex court, in a unanimous judgment delivered by a five-member panel, dismissed the case initiated by a party aspirant, Mrs Abimbola Olawumi’s appeal, describing it as lacking merit.
The decision upheld the earlier judgment of the Court of Appeal delivered on June 18, which validated Oyebanji’s emergence as the APC flag bearer.
Naija News recalls that Olawumi alleged that she was unlawfully excluded from participating in the nomination process and asked the court to invalidate the outcome of the primary and nullify Oyebanji’s candidacy.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Mohammed Idris upheld preliminary objections challenging the competence of applications filed by the appellant on July 16 and July 23 to regularise her notice of appeal and appellant’s brief.
The court found that one of the accompanying written addresses was unsigned and that its pagination exceeded the limit prescribed under the Supreme Court Rules.
Consequently, the applications and the related written addresses were struck out.
Justice Idris also held that the first three grounds of appeal were incompetent because they did not arise from the decision of the Court of Appeal. As a result, the issues formulated from those grounds were also struck out.
On the remaining grounds, the apex court ruled that the Court of Appeal acted correctly in declaring Olawumi’s brief incompetent despite her pending application to regularise it.
The Supreme Court further agreed with the appellate court’s refusal to invoke its powers under Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act to determine the substantive originating summons, noting that the Federal High Court had already held that the suit was statute-barred.
The court also declined the appellant’s request to invoke Section 22 of the Supreme Court Act to hear the substantive case, holding that the constitutional 180-day period prescribed for determining pre-election matters had already expired.
The judgment effectively ends the legal contest over Oyebanji’s nomination and affirms his candidacy under the APC for the Ekiti State governorship election.
It will be recalled that Oyebanji has since been declared the winner of the 2026 Ekiti State governorship election after polling 319,224 votes to defeat other candidates.
