Just in: S’court dismisses PDP’s suit against Shettima over double nomination

Just in: S’court dismisses PDP’s suit against Shettima over double nomination

The Supreme Court on Friday dismissed the suit seeking the disqualification of Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima as presidential and vice-presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The coast is thus clear for the swearing-in of Tinubu and Shettima on Monday as Nigeria’s brand new president and vice president.

A five-member panel of the Supreme Court held that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) lacked the locus standi to institute the suit.

Justice Adamu Jauro, in the lead judgment, said the PDP is not a member of the APC and affirmed the earlier judgments of the Federal High Court and Court of Appeal, which dismissed the case on the grounds that the PDP lacked no locus standi to challenge the process of nomination of candidates by another party.

The PDP had claimed that Shettima’s nomination as Tinubu’s running mate was in breach of the provisions of sections 29(1), 33, 35, and 84(1)(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022.

The apex court held that section 84 of the Electoral Act only empowered an aspirant that participated in the primary election of a political party to challenge the nomination of a candidate by the party.

It held that the PDP failed to establish the injury it suffered as a result of the nomination by the APC, stressing that the law does not permit a political party to dabble in domestic affair of another political party.

PDP a nosy busy body, says S’ Court

The Supreme Court said the PDP was unable to prove that its civil rights and obligations were in danger of being infringed upon.

It described the appeal as the action of “a nosy busy-body and a meddlesome interloper that is peeping into the affairs of its neighbour.”