Abuja — The Supreme Court yesterday ordered the Court of Appeal in Enugu to hear and immediately decide the appeal lodged before it by the governorship candidate of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in the April 14, 2007 election in Imo State, Chief Martin Agbaso, which he claimed to have won.

However, the court presided over by Justice Dahiru Musdapher struck out the appeal filed by Imo State Governor Ikedi Ohakim and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) challenging the February 26, 2009 ruling of the Court of Appeal, which held that it had jurisdiction to hear Agbaso's appeal.

In a unanimous decision of the Justices led by Justice Mustapher with Justices Aloma Mukhtar, Ikechi Ogbuagu, Mohammad Commassie and Olufunmilola O. Adekeye, the court held that the lawyers representing INEC and Ohakim should have allowed the Court of Appeal to exhaust its hearing of the motion brought before it by Agbaso and APGA before rushing to the apex court on the basis of jurisdiction.

Both the INEC team led by Alhaji Abdullahi Ibrahim and the Ohakim team led by Chief Bon Nwakanma had earlier sought leave to file a new motion, which the apex court turned down just as it also struck out the request of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) to be joined as an interested party.

According to the apex court, the party had a wrong motive to want to join the case when it could be decided with or without the party.

Justice Musdapher asked, "How does this case affect you? You want him to lose because he left your party. You are not a necessary party in this case and the application is hereby struck out."

He advised the counsel in the appeal to do the right thing in order to relieve the apex court of the burden of reading volumes of documents which ultimately would not change the situation.

At this stage, the lawyers representing the appellants requested to confer with each other and returned with the request that the court should adjourn the case sine die, asking it to vacate its order for a stay of proceedings.

But the apex court ruled that it was not ready to grant that request, which implied a dismissal if it was withdrawn.

The court instead struck out the two appeals brought by INEC and Ohakim.

In addition to returning the matter to the Appeal Court, the learned justices ordered the court to accelerate the hearing and give it an expeditious attention.

Three parties comprising INEC, Ohakim with his former party, PPA, and Senator Ifeanyi Araraume, who later withdrew, had gone to the apex court to appeal against the decision of the Appeal Court Abuja, that it had jurisdiction to hear the case of election cancellation brought against it by Agbaso, the APGA governorship candidate.

In his prayer before the Court of Appeal, Agbaso had asked the court to also clarify if it was possible to cancel the governorship election and uphold that of the state House of Assembly held simultaneously on the same day with votes cast in the same ballot box.

The APGA candidate while challenging the legality of the poll cancellation attached the INEC result sheets.

Last February 26, the court ruled that all parties to the case should appear before it on March 23, 2009 to present their briefs, but considering the pending appeal it gave a fresh ruling that it was going to adhere to judicial discipline even though it was its desire to give the appeal expeditious hearing

Responding to Agbaso's motion for accelerated hearing and the counter-motion by INEC and Ohakim, which argued that there were two appeals that were not consolidated and therefore that it was not possible to deal with the appeal, the apex court on June 23, 2009 consolidated the two appeals.

It further stated that in view of the imminent vacation of the Supreme Court judges, it had to adjourn hearing to September 29.

In an earlier ruling of the court in a motion filed by INEC and the governor seeking dismissal of Agbaso's appeal case, Justice Jimmy Olukayode Bada held that the Port Harcourt Division of the Court of Appeal refused to hear the case because it was a pre- election matter.

The unanimous ruling dismissed the motion of INEC and Ohakim that the appellant's suit should be thrown out for constituting an abuse of court process and that the electoral body had the power to do what it did.

Justice Bada held that the fact that the appellant participated in the re-run election of April 28, 2007 had not removed his legal rights to challenge the annulled poll of April 14, 2007 where he also took part.

The appellate court disagreed with INEC and the governor that the action of the APGA candidate constituted an abuse of court process having challenged the result of the re-run election up to the Appeal Court on account of his loss at the second poll.

The court further held that the two elections were different from one another and held on different days, adding that aggrieved participants had rights in law to ventilate their anger in a law court by seeking redress on any issue in dispute.

Justice Bada held that the dispute on the first election was whether INEC was right in canceling it even when the results had been collated, adding that Agbaso as a participant and as an aggrieved person reserved the right to challenge the legality of the election cancellation.

Earlier Agbaso had gone to the Abuja High Court to stop the election of April 28 but was told after the election had held to take his case to the tribunal where it was struck out on technical grounds.

The April 14, 2007 governorship election reportedly won by Agbaso was cancelled by INEC on account of alleged irregularities in nine local governments while the House of Assembly election, which held simultaneously with it, was upheld.

A fresh one conducted on April 28 of the same year later produced Ohakim as the governor of the state.

Meanwhile, there was jubilation in some parts of the state as soon as news of the apex court's ruling got to town

Traffic was chaotic for hours in Owerri, the state capital, especially along the popular Wetherdral Road.