The removal of parliamentarians from their seats by the Court of Appeal in recent weeks has raised a lot of eyebrows.
The Appeal Court dismissed the federal lawmakers for various reasons in separate rulings.
The first person fired was Elisha Abbo of Adamawa North, and the second was Abubakar Sadiku-Ohere of Kogi Central. Also dismissed by the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division, was Darlington Nwokocha.
The appeal court dismissed Simon Mwadkwon, a senator from Plateau North. It did, however, mandate a rerun to be held by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in ninety days.
Sadiku-Ohere and Abbo are both All Progressives Congress (APC) members.
Mwadkwon is the Senate’s minority leader and a PDP member.
The following timeline of events is chronicled by the Nation’s Alao Abiodun:
1. Datti against Kwankwaso
In the Kura/Madobi/Garun Malam Federal Constituency Election, the Court of Appeal in Abuja dismissed Yusuf Umar Datti of the New Nigeria People’s Party and reinstated Musa Ilyasu Kwankwaso of the All Progressives Congress.
The three-member panel, chaired by Justice Tunde Oyebamiji Awotoye, granted Yusuf Datti’s appeal. They claimed that the appellant’s resignation date was incorrectly counted as the date of his party’s primary election and that Section 77 of the Electoral Act was improperly applied, stating that no court has jurisdiction over matters pertaining to party membership.
2. Akobundu vs. Nwokocha
Darlington Nwokocha, the Senate minority chief whip who represented Abia Central on the Labour Party platform, was also fired by the Court of Appeal, Lagos Division.
The Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) Augustine Akobundu was proclaimed by the court to be the legitimate victor of the senatorial district election held on February 25.
Retired colonel Akobundu was the PDP’s national organizing secretary and a former state minister of defense.
3. Udende versus Suswam
The former governor of Benue State, Gabriel Suswam, was removed from the Senate by the Court of Appeal, which is based in Abuja.
Udende was proclaimed the election’s victor by the Independent National Electoral Commission on February 25. He had received 135,573 votes, more than Senator Gabriel Suswam of the People’s Democratic Party, who had received 112,231 votes.
In a unanimous ruling, the three-judge appellate court stated that it was certain Suswam was not the legitimate victor of the senatorial election that took place in Benue North East on February 25.
It criticized the Benue State National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal’s decision to nullify Mr. Emmanuel Udende of the All Progressives Congress’ election victory and send Suswam of the PDP back to the Senate.
The appellate court claims that the tribunal reached an incorrect result, upholding Suswam’s petition to contest Udende’s election victory, by incorrectly assessing the evidence that was brought before it by the parties involved.
As a result, the court declared that it had validity in the appeal that the APC candidate had filed with it, and it overturned the tribunal’s decision.
4. Amos Yohanna vs. Senator Abbo
Senator Ishaku Abbo, a member of the National Assembly who represents Adamawa North Senatorial District, was also dismissed by the Court of Appeal, Abuja Division.
The court overturned Abbo’s election as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in favor of Amos Yohanna, the PDP candidate.
Following the parties’ arguments, the Court of Appeal concurred with Usman that the results submitted unequivocally demonstrated that the Electoral Act had not been followed, in accordance with Section 137 of the Act.
Following the deduction of both parties’ illegitimate ballots, the court determined that Yohanna and the PDP had won the election with a majority of valid votes.
5. Hon. Jaafar Magaji vs. Hon. Jingi Rufai
The member of the House of Representatives representing Mubi North, Mubi South, and Maiha in Adamawa State, Hon. Jingi Rufai, was also dismissed by an appeal court located in the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.
In the 2023 National Assembly election, the court dismissed the People Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and declared Hon. Jaafar Magaji of the All Progressive Congress (APC) the victor for the constituency. Additionally, the court directed INEC to provide Magaji with a certificate of return.
6. Ohere against Akpoti Natasha
Natasha Akpoti-Uduagan (PDP) was declared the victor of the Kogi Central Senatorial Election that was held earlier in February by the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal.
Senator Abubakar Sadiku Ohere (APC, Kogi Central) sought an appeal, but the court denied it due to its lack of merit.
Remember that the win of Ohere, the Senate Chairman of the Committee on Local Content for the All Progressives Congress, was declared void by the Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal in Lokoja in September?
Ohere, however, went to the appellate court in an attempt to get his case heard, but the court dismissed his appeal and recognized Akpoti-Uduagan as the election’s victor.
7. Abubakar Baba Zango vs. Mohammed Salihu
The National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal in Yola, Adamawa State, had ruled that Mohammed Salihu was legitimately nominated by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) to run in the most recent House of Representatives election. However, this ruling was overturned by the Court of Appeal located in Abuja.
Salihu ran and won the federal constituency election for Girei, Yola South, and Yola North.
Abubakar Baba Zango and the All Progressives Congress (APC) filed a petition, which the lower court dismissed. The petition claimed that Zango was not eligible to run for the National Assembly on February 25 because he had allegedly given the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a forged birth certificate and primary school certificate.
Abubakar’s legal team had asked the tribunal to declare the PDP candidate’s election invalid on that basis and to direct INEC to give him a certificate of return for finishing second in the aforementioned poll.
However, Justice Aloysius Okuma, the tribunal’s chairman at the time, rejected Abubakar’s petition, stating that he had not produced sufficient proof to support his claims of certificate fabrication, particularly with regard to name variation.
F.K. Idepefo, Abubakar’s attorney, filed an appeal with the Appeal Court, claiming his client should be recognized as the representative for the disputed House of Representatives constituency due to his dissatisfaction with the ruling.
In his procedures, Idepefo argued that
“The appellants’ case was that the certificates they presented to INEC were forged, not that Salih, Salisu, or Salihu is a misnomer or a variant of the name Salihu,” the election tribunal’s justices concluded, totally misinterpreting the appellants’ case.