The Supreme Court has struck out the appeal by the Hope Democratic Party (HDP) challenging the election of President Muhammadu Buhari in the February 23 presidential election.
A five-member panel of justices led by Justice Mary Odili, on Thursday, unanimously held that the HDP had no valid appeal before the apex court and therefore, struck out the two appeals.
HDP’s presidential candidate, Ambroae Owuru, had brought the appeal following the dismissal of his petition by the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal on August 22.
Owutu and HDP claimed they won a referendum conducted on February 16 following the postponement of the main election to February 23.
But defence lawyers, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), representing Buhari; Yunus Ustaz Usman (SAN) for INEC and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) for the APC, all asked the tribunal to dismiss the appeal for being incompetent since both HDP and Owuru filed two notices of appeal with related grounds rather than one notice of appeal with additional grounds of appeal.
Details later.
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