—It’s triumph of democracy, rule of law – PDP
By Ameh Ejekwonyilo and Samuel Ogidan, Abuja
The Supreme Court yesterday doused the tension that was brewing in Ado-Ekiti as it dismissed an appeal brought by the All Progressives Congress (APC) against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) seeking to annul the election of Ekiti state Governor, Mr. Ayodel Fayose.
A seven-man panel of the court, presided over by Justice John Fabiyi, upheld the decisions of the Court of Appeal, Ekiti Division, and the Ekiti state Governorship Election Tribunal, which had earlier held that the suit lacked merit.
The apex court, in the lead judgement delivered by Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, also dismissed all the grounds of appeal filed by the APC.
The court held that all the issues in the main appeal had been resolved against the appellants and, therefore, found the appeal to be devoid of merit and it was dismissed.
“The judgement by the court below, which affirmed the decision of the Ekiti State Election Petition Tribunal is hereby affirmed,” the court said.
The court also dismissed the APC’s claim that Fayose was not qualified to stand election because he was impeached in October 2006 by the state House of Assembly for official misconduct.
The Supreme Court also upheld the Court of Appeal’s decision which had faulted Fayose’s impeachment on the ground that it contravened the provisions of Section 188 of the 1999 Constitution.
It said that the impeachment panel was illegal and so the outcome of the impeachment was a nullity, adding that the illegal Ekiti Acting Chief Judge who presided over the impeachment panel had been dismissed.
It further held that merely impeaching a governor does not disqualify him from vying for election for 10 years as argued by the appellant’s counsel, because he ought to have been prosecuted and pronounced guilty by a court of competent
jurisdiction.
The court also affirmed the Court of Appeal’s dismissal of the appellant’s argument that Fayose was not qualified to contest the election because he filled his INEC application form with a forged HND certificate from The Polytechnic, Ibadan.
In a reaction, the PDP has described the judgement as “a triumph of democracy and the rule of law.”
It said the ruling was a testimony that the judiciary is still the last hope of the common man, having sustained the wishes and aspirations of the people of Ekiti state as expressed in the June 21, 2014 governorship election.
The party, in a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh, said the ruling “has given hope to the survival of democracy, especially coming at a time when some officials of key institutions of democracy such as INEC and some security personnel have already started compromising their independence, apparently under the dictates of an obsessive APC.”
The party congratulated Fayose and the people of Ekiti for their doggedness in the face of “daunting challenges from anti-democratic forces” and urged the governor to be magnanimous in victory while using his mandate to deliver good governance in line with the PDP manifesto and vision of the party’s founding fathers.
The PDP restated its resolve to continue to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the governor and the people of the state and vowed to resist any form of political intimidation or blackmail aimed at destabilising the state.
The party said: “In this regard, we warn all anti-democratic forces hiding in the state, especially the outgoing APC lawmakers, against any action intended directly or indirectly to destabilise the state or undermine this democratically elected PDP government under Governor Ayo Fayose.”