Special to USAfrica magazine (Houston) and USAfricaonline.com, the first Africa-owned, US-based newspaper published on the Internet.
The Supreme Court of Nigeria dismissed the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) lawsuit that sought to invalidate Asiwaju Bola Tinubu and Senator Kashim Shettma’s joint campaign for president and vice president of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the most recent election.
Shettma was accused by the PDP of breaking the Electoral Act by enabling himself to be nominated twice, once for Vice President and once for the Borno Central Senatorial District.
In a judgment passed on Friday (May 26, 2023), a five-member panel of the apex court, held that the appeal by the PDP was grossly lacking in merit and a waste of the court’s precious time.
In the lead decision, Justice Adamu Jauro upheld the earlier rulings of the Federal High Court and Court of Appeal, which had previously dismissed the case on the grounds that the PDP had the legal standing to file a lawsuit challenging another party’s candidate nominating procedure.
Kashim was found not guilty of double nomination since there was evidence that he withdrew as a senatorial candidate on April 6 before he was nominated as a vice presidential candidate on April 14. Justice Jauro called PDP a busy body and meddling interloper.
