Supreme Court affirms Benue APC federal constituency candidate

The Supreme Court on Monday upheld the nomination of Asema Achado as the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Gwer-East/Gwer-West federal constituency of Benue State.

Mr Achado had challenged the wrongful substitution of his name with David Nongo, an aspirant in the party’s primary election held on 29 May 2022.

The plaintiff contended at the Federal High Court, Abuja, that the APC erred when it forwarded Mr Nongo’s name to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the standard-bearer for the Benue federal constituency poll.

Nigeria’s parliamentary and presidential election holds on 25 February, Saturday.

In its judgement, the Federal High Court presided over by Obiora Egwuatu declared Mr Achado as the validly nominated candidate for the election.

Dissatisfied with the court’s decision, Mr Nongo approached the Court of Appeal in Abuja.

However, delivering its judgement on 3 January, a three-member panel of the Court of Appeal, Abuja led by Stephen Adah affirmed the Federal High Court verdict.

The appellate court upheld Mr Achado’s candidacy for the 25 February election.

Not done yet, Mr Nongo appealed to the Supreme Court, urging it to upturn the decisions of the trial and lower courts.

But delivering the lead judgement on Monday, on behalf of a five-member panel of the Supreme Court, Emmanuel Agim dismissed the appeal filed by Mr Nongo for lacking in merit.

After affirming Mr Achado’s candidature, Mr Agim slammed a N5 million fine on Mr Nongo in favour of the 1st respondent (Mr Achado).

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In his defence at the trial court, Mr Nongo had contended that Mr Achado lacked the right to have filed the suit on the basis that he did not participate in the primary election.

Also, he contended that the judge, Mr Egwuatu, lacked the jurisdiction to have entertained the case on the ground that Mr Achado filed the suit outside of the 14 days prescribed by section 285 (9) of the Nigerian constitution.

However, Mr Achado argued that he won the APC ticket through the primary election which was held via direct mode.

Mr Achado contended that the National Working Committee (NWC) of the APC needed to give its approval of the poll which was conducted by state officials of the party because the exercise was conducted through direct mode.