Aisha Dahiru-Ahmed, also known as Binani, a candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Adamawa governorship race, filed a lawsuit, which Justice Inyang Ekwo of a Federal High Court in Abuja dismissed.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was the target of the lawsuit.
Recall that the APC candidate had asked the court to launch a judicial review of INEC’s decision to reverse its decision to retract Hudu Yunusa-Ari’s previous declaration of her as the election’s winner.
When the case was being heard again on Wednesday, Mohammed Sheriff, counsel for Binani, informed Justice Ekwo that a notice of discontinuance had been filed to that effect and urged the court to dismiss the case, according to NAN.
The attorney pleaded for the lawsuit to be dismissed after informing the court that numerous concerns had arisen between the last postponement date and the current one.
However, Justice Ekwo reminded the Sheriff that he was required to address the court regarding whether or not the court had jurisdiction to hear the case by order issued on the last adjourned date.
The judge decided that dismissing the case was the right course of action because Sheriff had disobeyed the court’s order.
“I hereby make an order dismissing this suit,” Justice Ekwo said.
On April 18, the judge turned down Binani’s request for an ex-parte hearing.
Instead, before considering the substantive case, Ekwo instructed the APC candidate’s attorney to address the court on the subject of jurisdiction.
The judge stated that even while he was prepared to hear Sheriff, he first needed to hear from the lawyer regarding the court’s jurisdiction.
He ruled that the application and the jurisdictional question would be heard jointly on the next postponed date and postponed the hearing to April 26.
On April 19, the electoral umpire proclaimed Ahmadu Fintiri, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the victor of the state’s governorship election.
Binani and APC sued INEC, PDP, and its candidate, Gov. Fintiri, as the first, second, and third respondents, respectively, in the motion ex-parte marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/510/2023.
Binani had requested a judicial review of the administrative decision made by INEC on April 16 regarding the declaration of her as the victor of the governorship elections held on March 18 and the April 15 supplementary election through the representation of Hussaini Zakariyau, SAN.
In addition, she asked for an order of prohibition and certiorari to stop INEC and its representatives from proceeding with the declaration of the election’s winner while her request for judicial review was being considered.
The PDP and its candidate, Governor Fintiri, resorted to fighting and causing a public disturbance, which resulted in the beating and manhandling of an INEC staff member, according to Binani, who provided grounds for why the motion should be granted. After the results were tallied, INEC declared her the election’s winner, but the PDP resorted to fighting and manhandling.
She claimed that because of this issue, INEC had to revoke the first declaration, which was outside of its authority because only the electoral petition tribunal is endowed with such authority.
