The appeal by Kenneth Gbagi of the SDP is an offshoot of the petition he filed at the Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal to challenge Governor Oborevwori's victory in the 18 March governorship election in the state.
The Supreme Court on Thursday dismissed an appeal filed by the Delta State governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) against Governor Sheriff Oborevwori of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The appeal by Kenneth Gbagi of the SDP is an offshoot of the petition he filed at the Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal to challenge Mr Oborevwori's victory in the 18 March governorship election in the state.
The appeal is not against the final decision of the tribunal. It was filed to challenge only a narrow issue of the tribunal's refusal to accept certain evidence the petitioner had sought to tender against Mr Oborevwori.
The tribunal's decision on the legal point had been subsequently affirmed by the Court of Appeal in Abuja, prompting Mr Gbagi to further proceed to the Supreme Court to challenge the concurrent decisions of the two lower courts.
But a five-member panel of the Supreme Court led by Inyang Okoro, on Thursday, dismissed the appeal.
The court dismissed the appeal after convincing Mr Gbagi's legal team about the futility of continuing to pursue the case.
After the appeal was called up for hearing, the Mr Okoro-led panel of the Supreme Court court fired questions at Mr Gbagi's lead counsel, Niyi Akintola, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), querying the basis for it.
Key among the questions raised by the panel was whether the Supreme Court had the jurisdiction to entertain the appeal, after the statutory period of 180 days that the tribunal had to determine the substantive petition had elapsed.
"The period allowed for hearing of this matter has elapsed. If the trial court does not have the jurisdiction again, what it means is that this court cannot wear the shoe of the trial court because the 180 days is gone.
"As it stands, only the final judgement of the tribunal can be appealed. This matter has become academic," Vanguard newspaper quoted Mr Okoro as saying during the panel's question-and-answer session with Mr Gbagi's lawyer on Thursday.
Mr Okoro, also responding to a plea by the appellant's lawyer, said the court could not, in the circumstance of the case, invoke the original jurisdiction of the Supreme Court under section 22 of the Supreme Court Act to entertain the appeal.
Following the explanation offered by Mr Okoro, the appellant's lawyer applied to withdraw the appeal.
With no objection from lawyers to other parties in the case, the Supreme Court, accordingly, dismissed the appeal.
Background
Mr Gbagi had, after the tribunal concluded hearing on his petition, said he discovered new evidence to prove his petition.
He made an application for the reopening of the hearing of his case on the date fixed for the adoption of final written addresses by the tribunal.
But the three-member tribunal led by H. C. Ahuchaogu dismissed the application for being incompetent, belated, and strange as the document he sought to introduce was not pleaded in his petition.
The tribunal subsequently gave its final judgement that Mr Gbagi's petition in which he claimed to be the winner of the disputed election was unmeritorious.
It also dismissed Mr Gbagi's claim that Governor Oborevwori was not qualified to contest the election.
But before the judgement, he appealed against the interlocutory ruling of the tribunal rejecting his request to file fresh evidence.
He told the Cout of Appeal that the tribunal had flippantly rejected his fresh proof of evidence, including a government gazette, without considering the justice of the case.
He said in his appeal that he disagreed with the decision of the tribunal because the document was not pleaded in the petition.
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Both the PDP's lawyer, Ekeme Ohwovoriole, a SAN, and Ayo Asala, also a SAN, who is Governor Oborevwori's lawyer, had argued that the appeal lacked merit because the tribunal had been dissolved.
The Court of Appeal in its judgement dismissed the appeal.
The three-member panel of the court led by Muhammed Shuaibu held that the tribunal rightly rejected the evidence Mr Gbagi sought to tender after all the parties had closed their case.
It also held that the SDP candidate failed to show how the gazette he sought to tender in evidence was relevant to his petition.
The court held that Mr Gbagi's application before the tribunal was an abuse of court process.
Dissatisfied, Mr Gbagi further appealed to the Supreme Court which also dismissed his appeal on Thursday.
By the Supreme Court's decision, Mr Gbagi only has the option of pursuing his substantive appeal against the final judgement of the tribunal.
