A court docket has delivered judgment on a swimsuit difficult Tinubu’s age and citizenship.
Newsone experiences {that a} Federal Excessive Court sitting in Abuja has dismissed a swimsuit filed by three people searching for to cease the inauguration of President-elect, Bola Tinubu and his vice, Kashim Shettima over age falsification and citizenship standing within the doc Tinubu submitted to the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee.
In a ruling on Friday, Could 26, 2023, Justice James Omotosho, held that the swimsuit by the trio of Reward Ilemona Isaiah, Pastor Paul Isaac Audu and Anongu Moses, who recognized themselves as Involved Residents, was frivolous and an abuse of the court docket course of.
Within the swimsuit marked, FHC/ABJ/C5/657/2023, the plaintiffs alleged that Tinubu, who was declared the winner of the presidential election held on February 25, lied on oath within the Type EC9 he submitted to INEC, in assist of his {qualifications} to contest the election.
Additionally they advised the court docket that Tinubu falsely declared that he was not a citizen of every other nation regardless of that he was in possession of a Guinean passport.
The trio additional alleged that whereas the President-elect claimed that he was born in 1957, it was found that 1952 was his precise date of delivery, arguing that Tinubu’s motion was in gross violation of Part 117 of the Felony Code Act in addition to Part 156 of the Penal Code Act.
To usurp Tinubu, they prayed to the court docket to ban Tinubu from vying for any elective place for the following 10 years.
In the meantime, Newsone Nigeria experiences that Justice Omotosho dominated that the plaintiffs lacked the locus standi to file the swimsuit, including that the court docket couldn’t train jurisdiction to listen to it as a result of it pertains to a presidential election.
He maintained that below part 285 (14) of the 1999 Structure, as amended, solely an aspirant might problem the qualification or nomination of a candidate in an election.
He held that because the election has already been carried out, solely the Court of Attraction has the jurisdiction to entertain instances arising from the presidential election.
Whereas accusing the plaintiffs of losing judicial time of the court docket by submitting the swimsuit which he described as an abuse of court docket course of, Justice Omotosho held that the authorized motion was in dangerous religion because it was aimed to reveal the judiciary to ridicule.
He additionally held that the swimsuit, which sought to cease the inauguration that could be a few days away, was able to destabilising the democracy within the nation.
The presiding decide then awarded a price of N10 million in Tinubu’s favour, N5 million in favour of the APC, and one other N1 million to be personally paid by counsel for the plaintiffs, to every of the respondents.
Justice Omotosho additional threatened to refer the legal professionals that helped the plaintiffs to file the swimsuit to the Authorized Practitioners Disciplinary Committee for instituting an motion “able to dragging the judiciary to the mud.”