The Court of Appeal Sokoto Division on Monday set aside the judgment delivered by the Zamfara High Court, allowing the All Progressives Congress (APC) to field candidates in the 2019 election.<\/p>\n
The appeal was filed by Sen. Kabiru Marafa, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) and 129 others through his Counsel, Mr Mike Ozehkome SAN.<\/p>\n
Respondents are Kabiru Liman-Danalhaji and 139 others represented by Mr Mahmud Magaji SAN as lead Counsel.<\/p>\n
Delivering the lead judgment, which was adopted by two other justices: Tijjani Abubakar and Jamilu Tukur, Justice Tom Yakubu held that the lower court failed in its duty to properly evaluate the evidence before it.<\/p>\n
Yakubu said judges have the legal power to produce judgment and reach decisions with reason, noting that in the instance, it was not done.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am convinced that the lower Court has failed to evaluate the evidence before reaching the decision.<\/p>\n
\u201dThe Appeal Court have power in law to access pieces of evidence on appeal, which we have done .<\/p>\n
\u201dBased on available facts the respondents did not contradict the INEC evidence on conducting the said primary election,\u201d Yakubu said.<\/p>\n
The presiding judge added, \u201cdocumented evidence has upper consideration than oral ones\u201d.<\/p>\n
Justice Yakubu held that the plaintiffs, being card-carrying party members and aspirants in the said primary election, have legal capacity to institute the suit.<\/p>\n
He added that Federal, States and FCT High Courts have jurisdiction to entertain such matter.<\/p>\n
The judges agreed that the judgment should serve as \u201cbitter lesson\u201d for political parties as they ought to follow legitimate guidelines and rules.<\/p>\n
\u201cDomestic affairs of political party activities must act within the confines of the law in dealing with party members and elections,\u201d the judges agreed.<\/p>\n
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) report that a Zamfara High Court recognised the primary election the produced governorship, state and national assembly candidates held by APC in the state and declared that INEC accepts the party candidates for the elections.<\/p>\n
Dissatisfied with State High Court decision, the appellants approached the appeal court , challenging the decision on the ground that the State High Court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the suit among others.<\/p>\n
NAN recalled that similar case was instituted before the same appeal court by Rep. Aminu Jaji, a Governorship aspirant and member representing Kauran Namoda\/Birnin Magaji Federal Constituency and was dismissed after Jaji withdrew.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Court of Appeal Sokoto Division on Monday set aside the judgment delivered by the Zamfara High Court, allowing the All Progressives Congress (APC) to field candidates in the 2019 election. The appeal was filed by Sen. Kabiru Marafa, Chairman of the Senate Committee on Petroleum (Downstream) and 129 others through his Counsel, Mr Mike […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":62,"featured_media":4524,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,16],"tags":[34,69,38,251,65],"class_list":["post-7114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-parties","tag-apc","tag-court","tag-election","tag-inec","tag-pdp"],"yoast_head":"\n