The Supreme Court has reserved judgment in a suit filed by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos praying the court to upturn an Appeal Court’s order for the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in Lagos State to resume hearing.
The apex court gave the ruling on Thursday in Abuja.
Sanwo-Olu had through his Counsel, Victor Opara, approached the apex court to upturn the order of the court of appeal to resume hearing in the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in Lagos State.
The Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Ikeja, Lagos State, had in June dismissed a petition filed by the AD and LP parties challenging the victory of Mr Sanwo-Olu at the March 9 election.
While Owolabi Salis, the governorship candidate of the Alliance for Democracy (AD), and his Labour Party counterpart, Ifagbemi Awamaridi, prayed the apex court to dismiss the appeal filed by the appellant and uphold the decision of the appeal court.
But, Justice Mary Odili who led the panel of five justices in entertaining the suit reserved the judgment to a later date.
A five-man appellate court panel held that the tribunal was wrong to have discontinued hearing on the basis that the AD and its governorship candidate, Mr Salis, had abandoned their petition.
“The case is to be remitted to the lower court for expeditious hearing of the matter,” the court held.
In the same vein, the apex court also overturned the decision of the tribunal dismissing the petition filed by the governorship candidate of the Labour Party.
The appellate court ordered the return of the petition to the tribunal for expeditious determination.
The election petition Tribunal sitting in Ikeja, Lagos state, had in June dismissed a petition filed by thye AD and LP parties challenging the victory of Sanwo-Olu at the March 9 election
The tribunal had cited the inability of the petitioners to file applications for pre-hearing conference after the close of pleadings within seven days as prescribed by law.
Justice Terhemen Asua, the Chairman of the tribunal, had noted that timely application for pre-hearing conference was a condition to the hearing of the petitions and without the application for pre-hearing conferences, the petition cannot commence or get to the stage of judgment.
He added that Section 285(4) of the Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution was inapplicable because the timely application for pre-hearing conferences was a precondition in election petition matters.
Justice Asua, said inability to serve any of the respondents was not an excuse, saying that the consequence of failure to apply for pre-hearing conference on time is dismissal of such a petition.
