Iseoluwa Ige
14 July 2007
Abuja — A full panel of the Supreme Court yesterday explained why it ordered former governor Andy Uba of Anambra State to vacate office for his predecessor, Mr Peter Obi, with immediate effect. The apex court also gave reasons why it declined the invitation by the former Governor of Oyo State, Dr Rashidi Adewolu Ladoja to sack his successor, Chief Christopher Alao-Akala.
According to the Supreme Court, "As at 14th April 2007 when INEC was conducting gubernatorial election in Anambra State, the seat of the governor of that state was not vacant.
"That election was a wasteful and unnecessary exercise. The INEC was aware at that time that the appellant (Peter Obi) was in court pursuing his legal rights. A body that has respect for rule of law which INEC ought to be, would have waited for the outcome of the court proceedings, particularly when it was aware of it," it said.
Going into the issue of jurisdiction to sit on the appeal in the first instance, the apex court said that it indeed had jurisdiction to hear and determine the case.
According to the court, the trial court which heard the case erred in law to have declined jurisdiction to hear the matter, adding that the Court of Appeal ought to have taken the advantage of its section 16 of the Court of Appeal Act to make orders which the trial court ought to have made but that it also failed to do so.
Said the court: "The court below (Court of Appeal) erroneously failed to take the advantage of the aforesaid provisions of the Court of Appeal Act. Would this then be the end of the road for a citizen who has approached the citadel of justice seeking remedies for wrong done him? I think not.
"The law must not and cannot be wanting in dispensing justice. And since justice according to law is the pre-occupation of a judge, a court must always rise up to such an occasion. It is to meet this exigency that section 22 of the Supreme Court Act Cap 424, Laws of the Federation of Nigeria 1999 was enacted to confer general powers on this court to do all such things that will bring about unalloyed justice.
"I pause to say that the conditionalities that must be in place for the invocation of the provisions of Section 16 of the Court of Appeal Act aforesaid are also the conditions precedent for the invocation of of the provisions of Section 22 of the Supreme Court Act," he said.
The conditionalities that must be present as stated by the Supreme Court include:
*That the lower court or trial court must have the legal powers to adjudicate in the matter before the appellate court can entertain it
*The real issue raised up by the claim of the appellant at the lower court or trial court must be seen to be capable of being distilled from the grounds of appeal
*All necessary materials must be available to the court for consideration
*That the need for expeditious disposal of the case or suit to meet the end of justice must be apparent on the face of the materials presented and
*That the injustice or hardship that will follow if the case is remitted to the court below must clearly manifest itself.
The Supreme Court yesterday said that all the conditionalities were present in the instant case.
"In the final analysis, for all I have been saying which explains the reasons for my decision on the 14th of June 2007, it is my judgment that this appeal is meritorious. I set aside the judgments of the two courts below.
"In their place, I make the following declarations and orders which the justice of this case demands. They are:
*That the office of Governor of Anambra State was not vacant as at 29th May, 2007
*That the tenure of office of Peter Obi as Governor of Anambra State which is four years certain will not expire until 17th March 2010 for the reason of the fact that he being a person first elected as governor under the 1999 constitution took oath of allegiance and oath of office on the 17th March 2006
*It is hereby ordered that Dr Andy Uba should vacate office of the Governor of Anambra State with immediate effect to enable Mr Peter Obi to exhaust his term of office."
It would be recalled that the apex court had given a summary judgment on the matter last month.
For Ladoja, the court yesterday said: "The appellant whose tenure of office commenced on 29th May 2003 when he took his oath of allegiance and oath of office to serve his first term of four years in the office as Governor of Oyo State, has not shown anything on record by which the fixed period of four years under section 180 (2) (a) of the 1999 constitution can be extended beyond 29th May 2007.
"As neither this court nor any other court for that matter has powers to extend this period of four years for the appellant beyond the terminal date of 29th May 2007," it added.
Governors Ladoja and Peter Obi of Oyo and Anambra States respectively had, separately, invoked the original jurisdiction of the Federal High Court to pronounce on whether or not their 4-year tenure of office could expire on May 29, 2007 when they did not spend up to four years in office.
Ladoja approached the Abuja division of the Federal High Court for the relief while Peter Obi approached the Enugu division of the court. The case of Peter Obi at the high court is that he was elected Anambra State Governor in April 2003 and was supposed to take his oath of office on May 29, 2003 but that INEC declared, in error, Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige as the winner of the election.
He said he did not smell the seat of power until after Ngige had spent three years of his tenure.
In the originating summons he filed before the high court, he was contending that since the Supreme Court had held that Dr Chris Nwabueze Ngige was wrongly sworn into office, he said that his tenure could not be backdated to read May 29, 2003 when he did not take any oath of office on that day.
He is consequently seeking a judicial pronouncement that his four-year tenure ought to be calculated from the date he took his oath of office. The Federal High Court, Enugu declined jurisdiction and struck out the case.
Obi appealed to the Court of Appeal, urging it to set aside the verdict of the trial court even as he requested the intermediate court to invoke section 16 of the Court of Appeal Act to decide the live issues raised in his suit as if it were sitting on the case as a court of first instance. The Court of Appeal also declined jurisdiction, saying the issue raised in the case had to do with election matter and that it was only an election petition tribunal that could hear the case.
Obi was dissatisfied and came before the Supreme Court. He specifically urged the apex court to invoke the provision of section 22 of the Supreme Court Act to sit on the case as a court of first instance because of its urgency. Ladoja's case is also similar in nature with Peter Obi's.
Specifically, Governor Ladoja also approached the Federal High Court, Abuja with a suit asking for tenure elongation owing to the fact that he was illegally removed from office by some state legislators for 11 months.
He said the constitution prescribed undisturbed four-year tenure for elected governors but that his term was disturbed by 11 months owing to his illegal removal from office. He also wanted the court to stop INEC from conducting election in the state for now because his tenure is purportedly not yet over.
But his political party, the PDP, urged the trial high court to dismiss his case, in its entirety, for lacking in merit. According to PDP, the sitting Governor, Ladoja, had not only collected all his salary arrears with allowances for the 11 months he was illegally removed from office, but that the Supreme Court had also pronounced while reinstating him back to the office that his tenure expires on May 29, 2007.
Ladoja's political party had also said that he procured the Supreme Court judgment which reinstated him to office based on a sworn-affidavit before the apex court that his tenure would expire on May 29, 2007. PDP told the trial judge, Justice Ukeje that entertaining Ladoja's case would amount to sitting in an appellate capacity on the judgment of the Supreme Court even as it added that Ladoja could not approbate and reprobate at the same time.
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