Governorship Seat : Tambuwal Loses Court Case

Governor Aminu Waziri Tambuwal of Sokoto State on Wednesday lost his appeal asking a Federal High Court in Abuja to reject court processes filed against his nomination by the All Progressive Congress (APC) for the 2015 Governorship election.

The processes were filed by Senator Umaru Dahiru and another governorship aspirant on the platform of APC which was accepted by Justice Gabriel Kolawole as being competent and properly filed to challenge the nomination of the governor for the election of the 2015.

At the mention of the suit today, the APC’s counsel, Mr. Jibrin Okutepa and Mr. Sundy Ibrahim Ameh (SAN) vehemently opposed the originating summon and the affidavit filed by Dahiru to challenge the propriety of the 2015 APC Sokoto Governorship Primary Election.

The plaintiffs filed the motion on the ground that the election was fraught with fraud, breach of electoral act and APC’s guidelines and also marred with violence.

The contention of APC and Tambuwal’s Lawyers was that a new counsel and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chief Roland Otaru was not properly changed to replace Professor Awa Kalu (SAN) who they said was the counsel for the plaintiff on record.

Okutepa and Ameh insisted that for the two plaintiffs to properly change their lawyer, the leave of the court must first be obtained and secured in line with provision of the Federal High Court Practice Direction.

They therefore urged the court to reject all the process filed by Otaru on the ground that they are incompetent and unlawful for the court to adjudicate upon.

However, Otaru in his submission informed Justice Kolawole that he announced his appearance as holding the brief of Awa Kalu, adding that his coming to the case was misconstrued as a change of lawyer by the counsels to the APC and Governor Tambuwal.

Otaru urged the judge to reject the objection of Tambuwal and APC’s counsels on the ground that the objection was baseless not competent, frivolous and vexatious.

In his ruling, Justice Kolawole recalled that the Supreme Court had in December 2016 directed that the case be giving accelerated hearing in the interest of Justice to both parties.

The judge held that since the originating summon filed by the two plaintiffs have not being heard, they did not need any leave of the court to file further process and therefore all process filed in relation to the suit are properly and legally filed as required by law.

Justice Kolawole agreed with Otaru that he was holding the brief of Awa Kalu hence the objection of Governor Tambuwal and APC lacked merit and are baseless because the legal representation of the plaintiffs has not been changed.

The judge further said that it would be against the interest of Justice to reject the processes including further affidavit filed by the two plaintiffs against governor Tambuwal because the process are properly filed and that the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have already replied to the originating summon and the further affidavit while only Governor Tambuwal choose not to file written address.

The Judge therefore ordered Tambuwal to file his written address within 14 days so as to properly join issues with the two plaintiffs who are challenging the legality of the primary election that produced him as governorship candidate of APC.

Hearing on the suit has been fixed for May 23, 2017.