The legal tussle over the March 18, 2023 gubernatorial election in Akwa Ibom State came to a decisive end on Thursday with the ringing affirmation of Governor Umo Eno’s victory by the Supreme Court, Nigeria’s apex court.
The general expectation was that there would be a final fierce battle at the Supreme Court between Eno’s legal team and those of the three main opposition candidates challenging his election but what was seen at the end was an anti-climax as the challengers practically surrendered after being made to realise the futility of their challenge.
One after the other, their lawyers withdrew their appeal against the verdict of the Court of Appeal, heeding the advice of the Supreme Court justices.
Accordingly, the Supreme Court struck out the appeals filed by the trio, Mr Akan Udofia of the All Progressives’ Congress (APC), Senator Bassey Albert Akpan of the Young Progressives’ Party (YPP) and Senator John Udoedehe of the New Nigeria Peoples’ Party (NNPP).
The Surrender Udofia’s counsel, Mr Hassan Liman, SAN, had told the court that the crux of their appeal was the eligibility of the second respondent (Eno) and the fourth respondent (Akpan).
He received the reprimand of the Supreme Court: “It is not every matter you bring here to bother us. Since you couldn’t invite WAEC to disown the certificate you claimed was forged, then stop wasting our time. The tribunal did a good job. We read the judgement and it was a perfect judgement.”
Consequently, Liman applied to withdraw the appeal.
Following no objection from the other parties, the five-man panel, presided over by Justice Uwani Musa Abba Aji, struck out Udofia’s appeal.
Surprisingly, when the second appeal, between Akpan and Eno came up, counsel to Akpan, Mr Ahmed Raji, SAN, who was in court, declined to make an appearance, hence the appellant was represented in court by Barr Tunde Falola.
The Supreme Court decided to jointly handle Akpan’s case with that of the NNPP candidate, Udoedehe.
Hear the court: “The decision we take on one will be binding on the other case.”
And there was a poser for Akpan’s counsel, Falola: “We have seen your petition and we read your processes. How is your case different from that of APC?”
The court, thereafter, frowned at Falola for repeating the same argument presented by the APC on the arrangement of names on the WAEC certificate of Eno and advised him against further waste of the court’s time.
At this point, Raji the senior counsel to Akpan, quickly rose to apologize to the court and consequently announced the withdrawal of the appeal with none of the parties objecting.
The court subsequently struck out the appeals.
Eno’s Long Walk to Supreme Victory
The defeated governorship candidates had earlier filed petitions, separately, challenging Eno’s election at the Governorship Elections’ Petition Tribunal in Uyo
In judgements delivered in September 2023,, the tribunal dismissed the petitions and declared Eno as “eminently qualified to contest the election” and as “duly elected by majority of lawful votes cast at the election.”
Dissatisfied with the tribunal’s verdict, the appellants appealed to the Appeal Court.
Their appeals were equally thrown out for lacking in merit by the Lagos judicial division of the Appeal Court in November 2023.
Unrelenting, they further appealed to the Supreme Court, the last bus stop.
On Thursday, they lost finally.
Before then, the Supreme Court had sealed the fate of two other gubernatorial candidates who challenged Eno’s election after they, too, surrendered.
Last week, the court dismissed the appeal by the governorship candidate of the Accord Party, Engr. Emem Coffie, and that of the Action Alliance, Akpan Abraham, after the parties withdrew the appeal.
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