The Court of Appeal in Sokoto on Wednesday affirmed the ruling of the High Court in Zamfara nullifying the candidature of Dr Dauda Lawal as the flag-bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for the 2023 general elections.
A PDP governorship aspirant, Ibrahim Shehu, dissatisfied with the conduct of the party’s primary election in the state, had challenged Lawal’s emergence as candidate at the Federal High Court Gusau.
He had argued that the primary election was marred by irregularities and non compliance with electoral act and PDP guidelines.
The court rule in Shehu’s favour while ordering the PDP to conduct a rerun within 14 days.
The PDP complied with the judgement, conducted the rerun for which Lawal reemerged.
Shehu returned to the same High Court insisting that there was no election and the high court nullified the rerun primary and ruled that the PDP has no governorship candidate for 2023 election.
Lawal then appealed to the Appeal Court Sokoto challenging the nullification his candidature by the High Court in Gusau.
However, the Appeal panel headed by Justice Muhammad Shuaibu dismissed the appeal in a unanimous judgement, holding that the appeal was an abuse of judicial process and lacked merit.
According to the panel, Lawal had no right to appeal the judgement he had already complied with, adding that the appeal was an academic exercise and therefore awarded N100,000 against the appellant to be paid to the respondents.
Responding to the Appeal Court ruling, Lawal’s lawyer, Aminu Aliyu said his client had opportunity of appealing the judgement in Supreme Court.
Ndiana Anaka, lawyer to Shehu said the judgement was a victory for democracy and rule of law.
He said “what is right is right and what is wrong.”
