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Zamfara: Oshiomhole Faults Supreme Court, Says Judgement Imposes Total Strangers on State
The National Chairman of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adams Oshiomhole, has described as injustice, the Supreme Court judgement, which upturned the party’s electoral victory in Zamfara State on grounds of technicality.
He stated this while speaking with journalists at the party’s National Secretariat in Abuja on Monday, in his reaction to the development after the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) meeting.
The five-member panel of the Supreme Court justices, in a unanimous judgement on May 25, declared that the APC in Zamfara had no candidates in the 2019 general elections.
This, it explained was because the party failed to conduct recognised primaries in accordance with party rules.
In the lead judgment by Justice Paul Galinji, the apex court held that all votes cast for the APC during the general elections in Zamfara were “wasted votes”.
He declared that all political parties with the second highest votes in the elections and with the required spread, were elected to various elective positions in the state.
Mr Oshiomhole stressed that the Supreme Court ruling amounted to imposing total strangers on the people of Zamfara.
He added that the right thing the court should have done, is to call for a repeat of the elections if the party fell short of electoral laws.
He, however, maintained that since it is impossible to appeal the Supreme Court ruling, the party will take its case the God.
On the votes cast for the APC at the elections which the court said were wasted votes, Mr Oshiomhole recalled that at the time the votes were cast, a High Court had ruled that the party’s candidates were validly nominated.
“There is something I learnt from Lord Denning, a famous British Supreme Court Justice that the law has to be interpreted taken into account the intention of the lawmakers, and try to deliver justice in its purest form.
“So, there is no justice when on grounds of technicalities, you impose on the people of Zamfara, not just a man or a woman, but a whole party candidates from Governor to Senate and others that they didn’t elect.
“If the court thought we were wrong, justice would have demanded that we repeat, but you cannot use technicalities because we are in a democracy.
“There is nothing democratic when the court imposing strangers to govern a people, but we understand that after the Supreme Court, we can only take our case to the Court of God, to that extent we must obey the Court,” he said.
He further maintained that what the APC got in Zamfara State was a judgement that didn’t translate to justice, considering the way the people of the state voted for the party and its candidates.
He, however, declined comments when asked whether the party would sanction its members that took it to Court in Zamfara.
(NAN)
Dr Hakeem Baba-Ahmed, the political adviser to President Bola Tinubu, has resigned his appointment.
Reports say the former spokesman of the Northern Elders Forum (NEF) tendered his resignation about two weeks ago.
Further reports quoting presidency sources did not, however, provide details of the reasons for his decision, but only stated that it was on personal grounds.
Baba-Ahmed was appointed in September 2023 as Special Adviser on Political Matters in the Office of Vice President Kashim Shettima.
Over the past 17 months, he had represented the presidency at several public fora, including a recent national conference themed: “Strengthening Nigeria’s Democracy: Pathway to Good Governance and Political Integrity”, which held from January 28 and 29, 2025 in Abuja.
The Supreme Court has set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal in Abuja recognising Julius Abure as the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP).
In a unanimous judgment, a five-member panel of the apex court held that the Court of Appeal lacked the jurisdiction to have pronounced Abure National Chairman of the Labour Party, after finding out earlier that the substance of the case was about the party’s leadership.
The apex court held that the issue of leadership was an internal affair of a party, over which courts lacks jurisdiction.
The court further allowed the appeal filed by Senator Nenadi Usman and one other, and held that it is meritorious.
It also proceeded to dismiss the cross-appeal filed by the Abure group of the Labour Party for being unmeritorious.
In January, the Court of Appeal in Abuja reiterated that Abure remained the chairman of the LP.
A three-member panel of the appellate court, in a judgment delivered by Justice Hamma Barka, held that its judgment of November 13, 2024, which recognises Abure as national chairman, subsists and has not been set aside by any court.
Justice Barka made the declaration while delivering judgment in two separate appeals filed by Senator Esther Nenadi Usman and the caretaker committee and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The appellate court in the two separate appeals held that it did not delve into the issue of the leadership of the Labour Party because such issues are not justiciable.
It said that anything done outside jurisdiction amounts to a nullity. Hence, the judgment of the Federal High Court delivered on October 8, 2024, by Justice Emeka Nwite is of no effect because it was delivered without jurisdiction.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has denied being partisan in handling the failed recall of the lawmaker representing Kogi Central, Senator Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan.
Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary to Chairman of INEC Mahmood Yakubu, who was on Channels Television’s Politics Today on Thursday, explained how the Commission handled the process.
“In the case of the Kogi Central District, we received a petition and a cover letter and of course what Nigerians were saying was that we were taking sides,” Oyekanmi said on the programme.
“But what happened was that in the covering letter, the representatives of the petitioners did not include their address as required in our regulations and guidelines and what we just did was to ask them to supply their address, it has nothing to do with the petition.
“And of course, there is nowhere in the law where INEC is asked to reject a petition just because the cover letter did not contain the address. So, there was no hanky-panky in what we did.”
Earlier on Thursday, INEC rejected the petition to recall Senator Akpoti-Uduaghan, saying that it has not met the requirements.
The electoral commission said the petition to recall Senator Natasha did not meet constitutional requirements.
Senator Natasha was suspended for breaching Senate rules, prompting some of her constituents to initiate her recall. They claimed the move was to ensure their constituency did not lack representation following the suspension of the 45-year-old senator.
Asked whether there could be a repeat of the recall process, the INEC spokesperson said the law did not specify if the process could be repeated and how many times.
“The law just talks about the threshold, the threshold meaning that if you want to recall, you must have, in addition to your petition, 50 per cent plus one signatures. The law did not specify how many times you can undertake that,” he said.
The lawmaker has made headlines in recent months after she accused Senate President Godswill Akpabio of sexual harassment, a claim the Akwa Ibom lawmaker has equally denied.
She was, thereafter, suspended by the Red Chamber for violation of its rule of conduct.
