The Supreme Court will on February 19, 2010 deliver judgement on the appeal brought before it by the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) against a ruling of the Court of Appeal, Jos which allowed Sen. Usman Albishir's application in spite of filing it out of time. ANPP and INEC want the Apex Court to determine whether the appellate court was right to have allowed Albishir to file an appeal out of time.

Justice Dahiru Musdapher who led a five-member panel of Justices of the apex court yesterday fixed the date after all the parties involved in the matter adopted their written addresses.

Albishir brief at the Court of Appeal Jos, had challenged the ruling of a Federal High Court Maiduguri which on February 21, 2007 struck out his application seeking for declarative and injunctive orders to challenge his substitution by INEC with that of late Governor Mamman Ali as the Yobe state governorship candidate of the ANPP in the April 2007 election.

Adopting his written addresses yesterday, Counsel to ANPP, Yusuf Ali (SAN) argued that the reasons given by Albishir for applying to file his appeal out of time were not genuine.

However, Counsel to Albishir, Alex Iziyon (SAN) led Damian Dodo (SAN) urged the court to discountenance the appellant's submissions, saying that INEC's Counsel was only trying to mislead the court by faulting the decision of the appellate court.

Iziyon explained that the Appeal Court's decision to allow the appeal is based on the circumstance before it which is supported by Order 4 Rule 4 of the Court.