John Adams, Minna

With barely five days after the presidential and National Assembly elections, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has insisted that the embattled lawmaker representing Niger East senatorial district, Senator David Umaru remains the authentic candidate of the party in the just concluded National Assembly elections.

 The party, it could be recalled had three days to the election, submitted the name of Alhaji Sani Musa to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in compliance with the federal High Court Abuja ruling which nullified the nomination of Senator Umaru as the candidate of the party for Niger-East senatorial district.

 But the party made a u-turn and filed an appeal against the Abuja Federal High Court ruling, seeking for the setting aside of the decision of the court which declared Sani Musa as the party’s candidate for February 23rd National Assembly election. 

 The party, in the suit filed by its counsel, S. I Ameh SAN & Co is challenging the decision of the court on 10 grounds and sought for five reliefs. 

According to the notice of appeal, made available to journalists in Minna yesterday, Mohammed Sani Musa, INEC and David Umaru are listed as 1st, 2ndand 3rd respondents respectively in the case where APC disowned Sani Musa as its candidate in the senatorial election.

 The Appeal Court Abuja has fixed March 6, 2019 for hearing of the appeal, even as INEC had declared Sani Musa winner of the Niger-East senatorial election after the last Saturday’s elections.

 The appeal by the party is a follow up to an earlier appeal filed by Senator David Umaru, challenging the Federal High Court, Abuja, presided over by Justice Justice Giwa Ogunbanjo which nullified his nomination as the party candidate.

 Senator Umaru had complained against the whole judgement of the court on 18 grounds, seeking for an order of the Appeal Court to set aside the judgement made on February 7, 2019.

Umaru represented by Chris Osuagu as counsel said, “the trial court erred in law when it assumed jurisdiction over the subject matter of the suit and granted all the reliefs sought by the 3rd respondent despite the appellant’s objection to the court’s jurisdiction.”

He further argued that the trial judge erred in law when he failed to evaluate documents that were placed before the court thereby “shutting his eyes to them”, adding that the findings of the trial court is perverse. 

 Also in the latest appeal, APC contend that the trial judge erred in law when it held that the 1st respondent’s suit was not statute -barred and went ahead to exercise jurisdiction to entertain and or determine the suit.

 The APC also argued that the trial judge erred in law in not recognising its primary elections, where which David Umaru was the sole candidate and subsequently declared winner.

 According to APC, “the learned trial judge erred in law by nullifying the appellant’s choice of the 3rd respondent as its candidate for the seat of Senator representing Niger East Senatorial District in the February 23, 2019 general election and holding that there were no valid primaries held on the 5th day of October 2018”.