The Court of Appeal in Lagos ordered the Lagos Election Petition Tribunal to continue trial in petitions filed by the governorship candidates of the Alliance for Democracy, AD, Owolabi Salis, and his Labour Party counterpart, Ifagbemi Awamaridi, against the victory of Gov. Babajide Sanwo-Olu at the March 9 governorship election in Lagos State.
Sanwo-Olu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, a decision which was challenged by the the candidates of AD and LP in separate suits.
The Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Ikeja, Lagos, in June dismissed the petitions filed by the two parties citing the inability of the petitioners to file applications for pre-hearing conference after the close of pleadings within seven days as prescribed by law.
The Chairman of the three-man tribunal, Justice Terhemen Asua had ruled that timely application for pre-hearing conference was a condition to the hearing of the petitions and without the application for pre-hearing conferences, the petition cannot commence or get to the stage of judgment.
He held that Section 285(4) of the Fourth Alteration to the 1999 Constitution was not applicable because the timely application for pre-hearing conferences was a precondition in election petition matters.
He, therefore, said that inability to serve any of the respondents was not an excuse, adding that the consequence of failure to apply timely for pre-hearing conference is dismissal of such a petition.
However, the Appeal court, in a unanimous decision, on Tuesday ordered the Lagos State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal to continue hearing of the petition.
“From the record, it is clear that the tribunal was wrong to have declared the petition as an abandoned petition.
“The case is to be remitted to the lower court for expeditious hearing of the matter,” the court held on Owolabi’s appeal.
