By Alexandria Dominic Chukwu
The Supreme Court of Nigeria, on Friday, gave a judicial seal of approval for the inauguration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Kashim Shettima as President of Nigeria and Vice President on Monday, May 29, 2023.
The apex court also dismissed the suit by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), seeking the disqualification of Tinubu and Shettima from the 2023 presidential election.
The Court held that the PDP’s suit praying disqualification of Tinubu and Shettima was grossly lacking in merit, and therefore dismissed it.
Justice Adamu Jauro who delivered the lead judgment, however, slammed a fine of N2 million on PDP for allegedly "poke nosing into the internal affairs" of the ruling APC, in the conduct of its primary elections and nomination of its candidates.
Justice Jauro agreed with Tinubu’s lawyer, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, that PDP acted as "busy body and meddlesome interloper in the ways and manners it dabbled into APC’s affairs".
The Supreme Court also held that the PDP failed to provide "scintilla of evidence that Shetima engaged in double nomination, apart from the fact that PDP lacked requisite jurisdiction to institute the suit".
The Judge described the claim of PDP on the alleged double nomination of Senator Kashim Shettima as the Vice President-elect as most unfortunate and a clear deliberate mischief to mislead the Court and the country.
Also, the Supreme Court agreed with Fagbemi that no matter the pains of PDP on how APC conducted its primary election and nominated its candidates, PDP must remain an onlooker.
“It is abundantly clear that the Appellant (PDP) in the totality of its position in the instant case, is peeping and poke nosing into the affairs of another party as a busy body and meddlesome interloper,” he said.
The Court, therefore, held that the action of PDP was painful because it used the social media to set a booby trap for the Supreme Court to blackmail it.
It said this is most unfortunate, unwarranted and uncalled for. (source: voiceofnaija). NNL.
