Governor Akinwunmi Ambode of Lagos State has described the decision of the Supreme Court to uphold his victory at the April 11 governorship election as a welcome development, saying it would put all issues on election matters to rest “once and for all”.
The Supreme Court yesterday struck out the appeal filed by Jimi Agbaje, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate in Lagos.
Agabje appealed the July 1 decision of the Court of Appeal, Lagos, which upheld the decision of the governorship election petition tribunal and dismissed the appeal he filed with his party.
The tribunal had, in its judgment on June 20, dismissed the petition jointly filed by Agabje and his party challenging the victory of Ambode, who was the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, on the grounds that it was incompetent.
Yesterday, the seven-man Supreme Court panel, led by Justice Tanko Mohammad, in a unanimous decision, struck out Agabje’s appeal for being incompetent.
In the judgment read by Justice Clara Ogunbiyi, the apex court upheld the preliminary objection filed by Ambode against the appeal initiated solely by Agbaje.
The court further upheld Ambode’s contention that Agbaje’s appeal was incompetent and merely academic because the party (PDP) that sponsored Agbaje as its candidate, accepted the decision of the Appeal Court on the issue and refused to join Agbaje to appeal to the Supreme Court.
Justice Ogunbiyi stressed that a political party was more important than the candidate in an election.
In a statement after the ruling on Tuesday, Gov. Ambode said the ruling had further proven the judiciary to be the critical institution that would deepen Nigeria’s democratic values.
“Our government is thus poised without further delay to provide the needed leadership to justify the confidence reposed in us, especially with the ruling coming in the wake of the swearing-in of members of the State Executive Council”, Mr. Ambode said in a statement by Habib Aruna, his Chief Press Secretary.
“We have in the last four months embarked on reforms in the judicial and security sectors based on our conviction that these are the fundamental organs on which any government can carry out its duties optimally; we believe this is the way to go, we won’t relent until we achieve our goals to make life more comfortable for our people irrespective of creed or colour”.
