The Supreme Court in a unanimous decision on Friday struck out an appeal in which former Ekiti State governor, Segun Oni, asked it to remove Governor Kayode Fayemi and return him to office.
A seven-man panel of justices of the Supreme Court led by Justice Mohammed Tanko held that the apex court had no jurisdiction to hear the appeal on the grounds that the matter emanated from a decision of the Court of Appeal arising from the 2007 governorship election to which section 246 (3) of the 1999 Constitution was applicable.
By the provisions of section 246 (3) of the 1999 Constitution, the Court of Appeal has the final decision on governorship petitions as at the time the appellate court sacked Oni from office.
The Court of Appeal, Ilorin Division, had, on October 15, 2010, sacked Oni of the Peoples Democratic Party from office and declared Fayemi of the Action Congress of Nigeria as the governor.
In the appeal he filed at the Supreme Court, Oni, through his counsel, Chief Joe Gadzama, SAN, had urged the court to set aside the October 15, 2010 judgment of the Court of Appeal on the grounds of alleged likelihood of bias on the part of the panel of the appellate court.
Gadzama had argued that the suspended President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Salami, who constituted and presided over the panel and also wrote the lead judgment that sacked Oni from office, had a close affinity with Asiwaju Bola Tinubu, the leader of Fayemi's party, ACN.
"Bias or likelihood of it makes a decision a nullity and is therefore a sufficient ground for the lower court to set aside its own judgment," Gadzama had maintained.
But in a preliminary objection, Fayemi, through his counsel, Olusola Baiyashea, SAN, argued that the Supreme Court lacked the jurisdiction to hear the appeal.
He maintained that the National Judicial Council, which investigated allegations of misconduct against Salami and other judges of the Court of Appeal who sat over the matter, had since exonerated them and as a result, the allegation of bias was no longer relevant.
Baiyashea further argued that the appeal emanated from a governorship election petition, which ought to terminate at the Court of Appeal.
Fayemi's lawyer described the appeal as a "subterfuge for appeal against the judgment of the Court of Appeal," noting that it was not presented under any enabling law, as it did not fall within the ambit of Order 19 Rule 4 of the Court of Appeal Rules.
