Supreme Court begins hearing on Cross River governorship polls tussle tomorrow

The Supreme Court sitting in Abuja will tomorrow commence hearing in the governorship legal tussle between an aspirant, Mr. Joe Agi (SAN) and the Governor of Cross River State, Ben Ayade, of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and INEC.

A notice of hearing issued by the Supreme Court Head, Litigation Department, Mr. Ibrahim Gold in Calabar states; “take notice that the above Appeal (SC256/2016) will be listed for hearing before the Supreme Court of Nigeria sitting at 9.00am on Tuesday 27th day of September, 2016”.

Agi had in a pre-election matter dragged Senator Ayade and others to the Federal High Court claiming among other things that Ayade was parading different and conflicting age declarations and by the Constitution of the party, he was not qualified to fly its flag as the governorship candidate and as such he (Agi) who came second in the primaries should be declared as the legible candidate of the party.

Agi lost the matter at the High Court in a judgment by Justice Abdul
Kafarati on July 31, 2015 in Suit No. FHC/ABJ/CS/25/2015 who dismissed the case on grounds that the matter was not proved beyond reasonable doubt. The three Court of Appeal Judges led by Justice Tinuade Akomolefe in a later judgment upheld this judgment.

Agi had argued that “the decision of the lower courts upholding the preliminary objections of the first (PDP) and third (Ayade) respondents only dealt with one ground of the Appellant’s case without considering the ground of the Appellant’s case bordering on presentation of conflicting age (s) declaration by the third Respondent to the first Respondent contrary to Article 14 (b) and 15 (2) of the Electoral Guidelines for the Primary Elections 2014 of the People’s Democratic Party (Exhibit JA5) and the Electoral Act”.