Supreme Court throws spanners in Gov Tambuwal’s election

Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto State

The bid by Governor Aminu Tambuwal to stop a suit challenging the propriety of his nomination as candidate of the All Progressive Congress, APC for the 2015 governorship election in Sokoto state has been struck out by the Supreme Court.

The apex court ruled on Tuesday that the nomination of Tambuwal by his party should be challenged by another governorship aspirant, Umaru Dahiru, on the ground that he has sufficient justifiable cause.

A five-man panel of Supreme Court Justices, in a unanimous decision, averred that to agree with Tambuwal that the primary election that produced him cannot be challenged by another governorship aspirant amounts to allowing the murder of democracy by the Governor.

The Supreme Court, in a lead judgement by Justice Musa Mohammed, read by Justice Chima Nweza, set aside the decision of the Court of Appeal that the court action instituted by Dahiru against Tambuwal had been overtaken by events on the strength of the election of the governor.

It stated that the appeal court erred in law by holding that the event had overtaken the case simply because the governorship election had been conducted after the primary election.

The apex court therefore ordered a Federal High Court in Abuja to retry the case on its merit and make decision as demanded by law. On this score, the Federal High Court will now determine the matter on its merit as ordered by the Supreme Court.

Dahiru had challenged the conduct of the primary election that produced Tambuwal as the APC flagbearer on the ground that it was fraught with fraud because the original list of delegates for primary election was purportedly swap in favour of Tambuwal.

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