The five-member panel of the apex court held that the legal team of the APC and Nnaji filed an invalid brief of argument.
The Supreme Court has dismissed the appeal filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC), and its candidate in the last governorship election in Enugu State, Uche Nnaji, challenging the declaration of Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as winner of the election.
Ruling on an appeal challenging the election of Governor Mbah on Friday, the five-member panel of the apex court held that the legal team of the APC and Nnaji filed an invalid brief of argument.
In the lead judgment, Justice Tijani Abubakar held that since the appellant’s brief was found to be invalid, the invalidity also affected the appeal in respect of which the appeal was filed.
The court proceeded to dismiss the brief and appeal filed by the appellants (Nnaji and the APC).
The Enugu Division of the Court of Appeal earlier dismissed the appeal challenging Mbah’s victory, describing it as incompetent.
The decision of the three-man panel of the appellate court was delivered by Justice J.O.K. Oyewole.
Nnaji, whose petition was initially dismissed by the Justice K.M. Akano-led Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal on June 20, had approached the appellate court to seek redress.
The APC candidate, in the petition, contended that Mbah was not constitutionally qualified to vie for the office of the governor at the time of the election for allegedly presenting a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Among others, Nnaji, who polled 14,575 votes against Mbah’s 160,895 votes, to place a distant fourth in the election, equally averred that his PDP counterpart was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election.