Supreme Court reserves judgment in Sanwo-Olu’s appeal

The Supreme Court on Thursday reserved judgment in a suit filed by Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu of Lagos State, praying the court to upturn an Appeal Court’s order for the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in Lagos State to resume hearing.

The Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Ikeja, Lagos State, had in June dismissed a petition filed by the AD and LP parties challenging the victory of Sanwo-Olu at the March 9 election.

Sanwo-Olu, through his Counsel, Victor Opara had approached the apex court to upturn the order of the Appeal Court to resume hearing in the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal in Lagos State.

Chief Owolabi Salis, the governorship candidate of the Alliance for Democracy and his Labour Party counterpart, Ifagbemi Awamaridi prayed the apex court to dismiss the appeal filed by the appellant and uphold the decision of the appeal court.

Read also: PDP BAYELSA GOV PRIMARIES: I’m disappointed, but we must move on —Alaibe

However, Justice Mary Odili who led the panel of five justices in entertaining the suit reserved the judgment to a later date.

A five-man appellate court panel had held that the tribunal was wrong to have discontinued hearing on the basis that the AD and its governorship candidate, Salis had abandoned their petition.

“The case is to be remitted to the lower court for expeditious hearing of the matter,” the court held.

Similarly, it overturned the decision of the tribunal dismissing the petition filed by Ifagbemi Awamaridi, the governorship candidate of the Labour Party.

The appellate court ordered the return of the petition to the tribunal for expeditious determination.

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