Court Of Appeal Dismisses Senator Sandy Onor’s Suit Seeking Disqualification Of APC Governorship Candidate, Senator Bassey Otu And His Running Mate

THE Court of Appeal sitting in Calabar, on Saturday, the 4th of February, 2023, dismised the appeal by the Peoples’ Democratic Party & it’s gubernatorial candidate in the February, 2023 general election in Cross Rivers State, Senator Sandy Onor, which sought the disqualification of the candidate of the APC and his running mate in the said election, Sen. Bassey Otu, and Hon. Peter Odey, respectively. In a unanimous decision on an appeal which was filed and argued by Prof. Mike Ozekhome, SAN, the 3-man panel of the Court of Appeal, presided over by Hon. Justice Raphael Chikwe Agbo (in which Justices Balkisu Bello Aliyu and Justice Oyebisi Folayemi Omoleye, concurred) in Appeal No CA/C/392/2022, dismissed the appeal as lacking in merit and non-justiciable. The court affirmed the earlier judgement of the Federal High Court in Suit No. FHC/CA/CS/142/2022, delivered by Hon. Justice R.O. Dugbo-Oghoghorie on 24th day of November, 2022

The facts of the case are that in their Originating Summons at the trial court, the appellants had argued that APC’s Deputy gubernatorial candidate, Hon. Peter Odey, was disqualified from contesting the elections on the ground that he was not a member of the party and that he possessed dual citizenship of both Nigeria and the United Kingdom. Senator Bassey Otu and his said running mate had through their counsel, Prof Ozekhome argued that membership of a political matter is the internal affair of the party, which is non-justiciable; and secondly, that the APC’ Deputy gubernatorial candidate was not disqualified, being a Nigerian citizen by birth who only subsequently acquired British citizenship by naturalization.

The trial judge agreed with this position of law and dismissed Senator Onor’s suit as lacking in merit. The court held that the plaintiffs did not provide convincing argument of the alleged dual membership of two political parties – the PDP and the APC – as alleged by the former. The same fate befell their argument about the purported dual citizenship of both Nigeria and the UK by Hon. Peter Odey.

Dissatisfied, Senator Sandy Onor had appealed to the Court of Appeal, Calabar, Division, urging it to overturn the decision of the lower court. His counsel, F. Baba Isah, formulated two issues for determination based on four grounds of appeal, from which he sought two reliefs, to wit: (i)an order allowing the appeal and setting aside the decision of the trial court and (ii) an order, pursuant to the powers of the Court of Appeal under Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act, determining the substantive matter and granting the reliefs sought therein.

However, the Court of Appeal disagreed with him; reaffirmed the decision of the trial court and held that the Appellant had no business in the internal affairs of another political party. The Court also upheld the judgement of the trial court, that the issue of membership of political party was not justiciable and that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain same. The court therefore dismissed the matter and awarded cost of N500, 000 naira against the PDP and Onor and in favour of Senator Otu and Peter Odey.