➥ CASE SUMMARY OF:
Ikechi Emenike & APC v. INEC, Labour Party, Chioma Otti, PDP, Okechukwu Ahiwe, YPP & Chima Enyinnaya Nwafor (SC/CV/1252/2023, 12 January 2024)
by Branham Chima (LL.B.)
➥ SUBJECT MATTER(S)
Hypothetical appeal;
Academic exercise;
Vexatious appeal;
Election.
➥ CASE FACT/HISTORY
The 1st Appellant as petitioner was sponsored by his party, the 2nd Appellant and petitioner, All Progressive Congress (APC) to contest the Governorship Election of Abia State held on the 18th day of March, 2023. The 1st Respondent, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), conducted the Election. The 2nd Respondent, Labour Party, sponsored its candidate, the 3rd Respondent, Dr. Alex Chioma Otti. The 4th Respondent, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), sponsored its candidate, the 5th Respondent, Ambrose Okechukwu Ahiwe, while the 6th Respondent, Young Progressive Party (YPP), sponsored its candidate, the 7th Respondent, Hon. Enyinaya Nwafor. There were fifteen (15) other Political parties and their respective candidates that also participated in the election of 18th day of March, 2023. At the conclusion of the Election, the 1st Respondent (INEC), returned the 3rd Respondent as duly elected with majority of lawful vote cast at the election. The Appellants, who came 4th in the election with 24,091 votes felt aggrieved with the declaration of the 3rd Respondent as winner of the election y the 1st Respondent and challenged the declaration by filing a Petition at the Registry of the Tribunal on the 11th day of April, 2023, on two grounds. The hearing of the Petition started on the 25th day of July, 2023, with the Petitioners calling three witnesses, two of whom were subpoenaed witnesses. The 1st Respondent did not call any witness. The 2nd and 3rd Respondents called only one witness, so also the 4th and 5th Respondents. The 6th and 7th Respondents did not call any witness to testify. The Tribunal delivered its judgments on the 6th day of October, 2023, where it upheld the objections of the Respondents that it lacked jurisdiction to inquire into nomination and memberships of the 2nd Respondent and that the Petitioners/Appellants lacked the locus standi to challenge same. It equally held that the Appellants failed to prove their second ground of the Petition to wit: that the 3rd Respondent was not elected with majority of lawful votes cast at the Governorship Election held on the 18th day of March, 2023, having failed to lead evidence on same. On appeal, The Court of Appeal after on the 15th day of November, 2023, delivered its decision on the 2nd December, 2023, dismissing the appeal and awarding 1,000,000 against the Appellants.
Still dissatisfied, the Appellants have approached this court on appeal.
➥ ISSUE(S)
I. Whether the striking out of the Appeal by the Court of Appeal is perverse?
➥ RESOLUTION(S) OF ISSUES
[APPEAL DISMISSED]
↪️ ISSUE 1: IN RESPONDENT’S FAVOUR.
[THIS APPEAL IS AN ABUSE OF COURT PROCESS
‘This appeal is a Siamese twin with SC/CV/1250/2023 in every aspect. The issues and the parties are substantially same, save that the Appellants are selfishly, greedily, tangentially and inconsiderately bent on having their way in by all means. Aside that the issues are repetitive, it is an abuse of court process to pursue and bird-dog such an academic appeal, that the outcome will have no utilitarian value to the Appellants, nor any purpose to achieve in our electoral and democratic system. Besides, it is a concurrent decision that stands without any iota of perverseness in it. The Appellants, who came a distant 4th in the election with 24,091 votes out of 368,541 cast at the Abia State Governorship election want a magic of disqualifying all the first three to make them the winners of the said election that held on 18/3/2023. There are actually no live issues left in the appeal that the Appellants are nagging this court with.’
THIS APPEAL IS A HUGE JOKE
‘The lower court was equally exasperated and put out by the Appellants appeal before it, that has annoyingly also came up to this honourable court, when it painfully observed that: This Court must say that it is rather bewildered by this case. It is a huge joke and the Appellants and their handlers, their Counsel must have confused the lower Court. and this Court as jesters’ arenas manned by clowns and comedians. Otherwise, how does one explain the temerity of the Appellants who scored 24,091 votes out of a total of 368,541 votes cast at the election, i.e. 6. 7% of the votes, approaching the lower Court and this Court to declare and return them as the winners of the election? And to in doing so, disqualify the third Respondent who scored 175,467 votes, almost eight times his votes, the fifth Respondent who scored 88,529 votes, almost four times his votes, and the seventh Respondent who scored 28,972 votes, and to find and hold that they were the only ones qualified to contest in the election. The Appellants did not challenge the validity of the votes cast at the election. They accepted that they were roundly rejected by the electorate. Yet they wanted the lower Court, and now this Court, to declare them the winners of the election. This can only happen in a comedy skit.’]
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✓ DECISION:
‘This appeal therefore is grossly unmeritorious and vexatious. It is hereby dismissed. This judgment abides the one in SC/CV/1250/2023. I affirm the judgment of the lower court.’
➥ FURTHER DICTA:
⦿ NIGERIAN SUPREME COURT BUSIEST IN THE WORLD
Counsel must note that this court is probably the busiest Supreme Court in the world and as such, splitting of appeals to give more work to the Justices should not be encouraged. A word is enough for the wise. — I. Okoro JSC.
⦿ THERE IS NO LAW THAT SAYS A PERSON’S NAME MUST BE IN PARTY’S REGUSTER 30 DAYS BEFORE ELECTION
If indeed the 3rd Respondent defected to the 2nd Respondent, it can only mean that he became a member of the 2nd Respondent. If he thus became a member of the 2nd Respondent, the Appellants conceded that movement, but in spite of that, tenaciously contend that the legal proof of that membership of the 2nd Respondent is if, and only if, the 3rd Respondent’s Register of members which was availed the pt Respondent thirty (30) days before the primaries, embodied the 3rd Respondent’s name. For the Appellants to succeed in this grossly speculative argument, they must produce a statutory provision to the effect that a person’s membership in a party is determined by the presence of his or her name in the Register of Members, thirty (30) days before the primaries. There is no such law in existence and such far reaching postulation cannot be endorsed on mere argument and rationalization, no matter how passionate the Appellants’ discontent may be. — H.M. Ogunwumiju JSC.
➥ LEAD JUDGEMENT DELIVERED BY:
Uwani Musa Abba Aji, JSC
➥ APPEARANCES
⦿ FOR THE APPELLANT(S)
Abubakar Malami, SAN.
⦿ FOR THE RESPONDENT(S)
Mrs. J.O. Adesina, SAN, for 1st Respondent;
Dr. Onyechi, Ikpeazu, SAN, for 2nd Respondent;
A.J. Owonikoko, SAN, for 3rd Respondent;
Prof. Paul Ananaba, SAN, for 4th and 5th Respondents;
D. C. Denwigwe, SAN, for 6th Respondent;
Nnamdi Ugochukwu Ahaaiwe, Esq, for 7th Respondent.
➥ MISCELLANEOUS POINTS
➥ REFERENCED (LEGISLATION)
➥ REFERENCED (CASE)
⦿ WHAT IS AN ACADEMIC APPEAL
✓ This court, Per ABBA AJI, JSC, considered what an academic and hypothetical appeal means, in APC v. ENWEREM and ORS (PP. 23-24 PARAS. C): To consider a matter which has been overcome by events is to go into futility. This is what the Court considers an academic appeal since no useful or future outcome can be obtained from it. A suit is academic where it is thereby theoretical, makes empty sound and of no practical utilitarian value to a party even if judgment is given in his favour. A suit is academic if it is not related to practical situation of human nature and humanity. Once a suit no longer has live issues for determination, such a suit is academic and a Court should on no account spend judicial time, or engage in academic exercise. Courts are to determine live issues. See Per GALUMJE, JSC, in ANYANWU v. EZE and ORS (2019) LPELR-48740(SC) (PP. 8-9 PARAS. A). My learned brother declared in the lead judgment, “Granting the Appellant’s application to appeal against the judgment delivered in the absence of jurisdiction is unreasonable and confers no utilitarian value…enquiring into the correctness of the Court of Appeal’s decision is tantamount to a futile exercise of trying to draw water from an empty well.
✓ OVIVIE v. DELTA STATE CO. LTD (2023) LPELR-60460 (SC) where this Court concluded thus: “My Lords, it has long been settled that where issues are found not to be crucial, but are merely theoretical and of no practical utilitarian value, pronouncing on same will be an exercise in futility and failure to do so cannot have any effect on the decision of the Court, particularly, if there would be no miscarriage of justice. Their determination would, therefore, make no practical or tangible addition to the outcome of the matter or to the decision of the lower Court being appealed against. Issues two and four before the lower Court fall into this category”.
➥ REFERENCED (OTHERS)
