Senator Ademola Adeleke
The Supreme Court, on Thursday, upheld the July 16 Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s governorship primary election that produced the Osun Governor-elect, Sen. Ademola Adeleke, as its candidate.
The five-member panel, in a judgment delivered by Justice Amina Augie, held that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the suit after counsel for the appellant, Adebayo Adelodun, SAN, withdrew the earlier notice of appeal that was filed within time.
Upon resumed hearing in the matter Adelodun, who appeared for the appellant and a PDP governorship aspirant, Dotun Babayemi, informed that he sought to withdraw the earlier notice of appeal to replace it with the fresh application he filed.
But the panel held that Section 285(11) of the constitution stipulated that an appeal on a pre-election matter must be filed within 14 days from the day of the decision, and that having filed the second appeal out of time, the apex court lacked jurisdiction to entertain the matter
Adelodun, however, argued that the motion was filed within time and that the counting begins a day after the judgment of the Court of Appeal.
The justices on the panel disagreed with him and pointed out that in election matter, the counting of time begins from the date of the event.
They said that the apex court had that position and adhere to it in the past eight years on all election-related matters.
They said that the only way to deviate from it past decisions was for the appellant to apply for a full court to hear him and possibly deviate from the earlier decisions.
They said this would involved the convergence of seven-man panel of justices as against five-member.
Comment here