The Supreme Court is to deliver judgment on Friday in the legal battle on the governorship ticket of the All Progressives Congress in Jigawa State.
A five-member panel of Justices, led by Justice Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, fixed the date for the judgment on Wednesday.
This was after taking arguments from parties in the appeal filed by Farouk Adamu Aliyu, former Minority Leader of the House of Representatives, and the cross appeal by Umar Namadi, Deputy Governor of the state.
Namadi, through his counsel, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), had won the legal battle at the Federal High Court in Dutse as well as at the Court of Appeal in Kano.
But Aliyu is by his appeal, marked: SC/1453/2022, challenging the November 4, 2022 judgment by the Court of Appeal (Kano Division), which dismissed his earlier appeal and upheld Namadi’s election as the governorship candidate of the APC in Jigawa State.
A three-member panel presided over by Justice Ita Mbaba in the November 4 judgment, unanimously dismissed Aliyu’s appeal against the September 13, 2022 judgement by Justice Hassan Dikko of the Federal High Court, Dutse for lacking in merit.
Dikko had, in the judgment, held, among others, that Aliyu lacked the locus standi to sue and added that he failed to prove his case with credible evidence.
However, in the cross appeal filed by Fagbemi, Namadi is challenging a portion of the Court of Appeal judgment that upturned the trial court’s decision that Aliyu lacked locus standi to have filed the suit, which did not qualify as a pre-election case.
Adopting his client’s brief on Wednesday, Fagbemi urged the Apex Court to dismiss the appeal by Aliyu and allow his client’s cross appeal.
Fagbemi argued that the Appeal Court was wrong to have exercised jurisdiction over Aliyu’s appeal, which he said arose “from an action improperly constituted”.
Lawyer to Aliyu, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), argued otherwise and prayed the court to allow his client’s appeal.