Supreme court to decide fate of Nine State governors today

By Stephen Asaba-ase

The Apext Court will today decide the fate of nine governors whose victory in the governorship election held on March 18, 2023, are being challenged.

The states the apex court has reserved its judgement, are Delta, Rivers, Kebbi, Nasarawa, Taraba, Sokoto, Gombe, Kaduna and Ogun.

A top official at the Supreme Court who pleaded not to be mentioned, told Congress news that the judgement in some of the instances were brought forward to Friday after the court vacated the whole of next week to allow its overstressed judges to rest.

While Justice Inyang Okoro will head the commission that will determine some of the appeals, the other panel will be led by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun.

Although, all the cases were heard by a five-member panel, aside that, last Friday when the supreme court dispense marathon judgements on governorship election cases from eight states of the federation, eight Justices sat for the proceedings.

A panel of the supreme court led by Justice Kekere-Ekun had on Thursday, said that, it would on Friday, decide on the appeal cases that is seeking to nullify the election of Governor Inuwa Yahaya of Gombe State.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Mohammed Barde, are praying the apex court to set aside the concurrent verdict of the Court of Appeal and the Gombe State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which dismissed the case they filed to challenge the declaration of governor Yahaya of the All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of the gubernatorial contest.

The panel okayed the matter for judgement, after all the parties adopted their briefs of argument.

The court, however, dismissed another appeal that was filed against governor Yahaya’s election by the candidate of the African Democratic Congress, ADC, Nafiu Bala.

The Appellant withdrew the matter after the apex court panel drew his attention to the fact that his case was premised on pre-election issues.