The Court of Appeal sitting in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital, has thrown out the petition filed by a former Governor of the state, Engineer Olusegun Oni, challenging the judgement of the court that removed him from office on October 15, 2010.
The same judgement pronounced the incumbent, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, as the validly elected governor of the state.
The Court of Appeal, in dismissing the case today, said the issues now being raised by Fayemi should have been brought up when the initial suit was heard in 2010.
The five justices of the Court of Appeal were unanimous in their decision.
They contended that Fayemi had enough time then in 2010 to have presented the issues he is just raising.
In his reaction, Fayemi said the grounds for the appeal were not known to him until after the judgement.
In the reaction by his Media Assistant, Lere Olayinka, posted on the wall of Olayinka’s social media, Facebook, Fayemi said: “Today, the Appeal Court Panel dismissed the case instituted by former Ekiti State governor, Segun Oni, against the October 15, 2010 judgement that removed him from office.
“The basis for the dismissal of the case was that we should have raised the issue before the Court of Appeal judgment of October 15, 2010.
“However, in the grounds we raised in our application, we stated that the facts which necessitated the application were not known to us until after the October 15, 2010 judgement. How then could we have raised issues that were not known to us?
“Therefore, since we have the right of appeal, as guaranteed by the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, we have ressolved to appeal the judgment of today at the Supreme Court, the highest court in the land.
“Any moment from now, our Notice of Appeal will be filed.
“Members of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), especially in Ekiti State, should therefore not despair because we are confident that God will use our case to set a landmark precedence in the history of the Nigeria Judiciary.
“We also wish to commend the judiciary for at least giving us the opportunity to be heard, as against the wish of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) and its functionaries, who never believed that rights of Nigerians to seek redress on any matter in Court, and duty of the Court to hear the matter must be respected.
“We urge the ACN and its functionaries to desist from rubbishing our judiciary.
“For instance, now that the ruling of the Appeal Panel that the ACN party and Governor Kayode Fayemi kicked against is in their favour, what are they going to say?
“As usual, won’t they begin to sing the praises of members of the same Panel they said must be disbanded?
“It is our position that from the step taken by the ACN party in the last few days, the party does not believe in the sanctity of the rule of law, and Nigerians should take note of this.”