Abuja – Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal has cleared the coast for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to go ahead with the recall process of Senator Dino Melaye, representing Kogi West senatorial district in the National Assembly.
Justice Nnamdi Dimgba of the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, had on September 11, 2017 dismissed a suit filed by Melaye seeking to stop INEC from initiating his recall from the National Assembly.
Justice Dimgba held that Melaye’s complaints were “hasty, premature and presumptuous” and therefore ordered the INEC to go ahead with its planned verification exercise.
Dimgba had permitted INEC to proceed with the exercise of verifying the signatures of the 188,588 registered voters who reportedly signed in support of the recall process. The 188,588 voters were said to have constituted 52.3 per cent of the 360,098 total registered voters in the Kogi West Senatorial District.
Consequently, the trial judge held that the only option available for Melaye was for him to go through the verification process to be conducted by INEC.
Apparently miffed by the judgment, Melaye headed for the appellate court, wherein he questioned the order made by Justice Dimgba.
But in a judgment on Friday, March 16, the Court of Appeal dismissed all the grounds of appeal filed by Melaye.
Justice Tunde Awotoye, leading two other justices, read the lead judgment.
The appellate court held that the 90 days stipulated by the constitution within which a recall process would take place “has no time limitation as it can be extended”.
The 90 days period provided by the constitution for INEC to commence the process of recall can be extended, since it has not started to run, the appellate court held.
In a unanimous decision, the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal filed by Melaye against the judgment delivered by Justice Dimgba.
It was the decision of the appellate court that the lower court ought not to have entertained Melaye’s suit ab initio.
Consequently, the Court of Appeal struck out the suit filed at the Federal High Court on the ground that there was no cusse of action.
On the issue of lack of fair hearing complained by Melaye, Justice Awotoye dismissed the claim on the grounds that “INEC is neither a tribunal nor a court of law.”
Justice Awotoye added that the powers of INEC were statutorily given by the constitution, stressing that even the court could not take away the powers of INEC to conduct a referendum.
“Such statutory bodies like the INEC should be allowed to exercise their statutory powers without interference by the court.
“The appellant cannot claim that his right of fair hearing was infringed upon. His right to fair hearing has not been violated, since INEC as a statutory body is not a tribunal neither is it a court of law.
“The appellant has not disclosed any cause of action and the suit ought to have been struck out by the trial court for not disclosing any cause of action.
“I agree with the decision of the trial court. Ordinarily, it ought to have struck out the suit for non-disclosure of cause of action.
“This is because where there is no cause of action, the court has no jurisdiction to hear the suit.
“Having resolved all the issues in the appeal against the appellant, I hereby strike out the suit and dismiss the appeal,” Justice Awotoye held.
Melaye had, through Mike Ozekhome (SAN), his lawyer, argued in his first ground of appeal that Justice Dimgba erred in law “when he held that the petition presented to INEC for his recall“ was valid, even when the petition exhibited by INEC was not signed by more than half of the registered voters in the plaintiff’s appellant’s constituency as is required by Section 69 of the 1999 Constitution.”
He maintained under these grounds of appeal that “the petition presented to INEC by the purported constituents and exhibited before the court as Exhibit lNEC 1, was only signed by three persons, which number is less than the half of the registered voters” in the constituency as provided for by Section 69 of the constitution.”
The post INEC Can Begin Melaye’s Recall Process – Appeal Court appeared first on Independent Newspapers Nigeria.
Source: Daily Independent
We appreciate you for reading our post, but we think it will be better you like our facebook fanpage and also follow us on twitter below.