The Supreme Court has upheld the nomination of Jigawa Deputy Governor, Umar Namadi as the lawful governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
In a judgment on Friday, a five-member panel led by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, dismissed the appeal by Farouk Aliyu, a former Minority Leaders of the House of Representatives.
In the lead judgment prepared by Justice Kekere-Ekun, but read by Justice Ibrahim Saulawa, the court held that the two lower courts were right in their earlier decisions that Aliyu failed to prove his case.
The judgment was on the appeal marked: SC/1453/2022 filed by Aliyu against the November 4, 2022 judgment by the Court of Appeal (Kano division) dismissing his earlier appeal and upholding Namadi’s election as the governorship candidate of the APC in the state.
The apex court affirmed the judgments delivered by the Federal High Court (Dutse) and Court of Appeal (Kano) on September 13, 2022 and November 4, 2022, which upheld Namadi’s nomination.
It upheld that arguments by lawyers to Namadi and the APC – Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) and Yakubu Ruba (SAN) that the appeal was without merit.
The apex court. resolved the issues raised for determination against the appellant and dismissed the appeal for being unmeritorious.
It also struck out the cross appeals filed by Namadi and the APC on the grounds that, the main appeal having been resolved against the appellant, the cross appeals were now academic.
The cross appeals had challenged a portion of the Court of Appeal judgment upturning the trial court’s decision that Aliyu lacked to locus standi to have filed the suit, which it said did not qualify as a pre-election case.