Court strikes out suit seeking to sack Buhari

 

Chigozie Ikpo, Abuja

 

 

A Federal High Court sitting in Abuja on Monday dismissed a suit by a former presidential candidate of Hope Democratic Party, HDP, Chief Ambrose Albert Owuru, against the election of President Muhammadu Buhari, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2019 presidential election.

 

 

Justice Inyang Edem Ekwo struck out the suit seeking the outright sack of President Buhari on three major grounds.

 

 

Justice Ekwo held that the suit constituted a gross abuse of court process, statute barred and was an affront to the supremacy of the Supreme Court of Nigeria, adding that the suit was baseless, frivolous, irritating and vexatious in its entirety.

 

 

Owuru had, in the suit instituted against Buhari and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), applied for an order of court to declare the presidential seat vacant and swear him in as the authentic winner of that election.

 

 

The notice was directly served on the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice as the Chief Law Officer of the Federation for President Buhari.

 

 

The former Presidential candidate asked the court to determine the legality or otherwise of INEC’s decision in 2019 during which it shifted the election from February 16 to March 23, 2019.

 

 

He claimed that INEC acted against the constitution in illegal and unlawful ways and manners the presidential poll was shifted and the declaration of Mohammadu Buhari as a winner of the unlawful act should be declared null and void and of no effect.

 

 

Owuru, a British-trained constitutional lawyer, called to the Nigerian Bar in 1984, however, asked the Federal High Court to declare him the winner of the poll, on the ground that the petition he lodged against Buhari had not been adjudicated upon by the Supreme Court as required by law.

 

 

The politician claimed that his petition at the Supreme Court was unjustly dismissed following his absence from the Apex Court occasioned by discrepancies in the hearing dates conveyed to him.

 

 

He, therefore, prayed the court to remove Buhari and declare him (Owuru) the authentic President and that Buhari should be compelled to refund all monies he collected as salaries, emoluments and security votes.

 

 

The HDP Presidential candidate also asked the court to order his inauguration for a four-year tenure of office upon removal of Buhari from office and that the Federal High Court should stop INEC from conducting the 2023 presidential election.

 

The Judge however dismissed the suit for lack of merit.