By Kamil Opeyemi
The Supreme Court has dismissed an appeal brought before it by Ikie Aghwarianovwe, seeking the disqualification of Delta State Governor, Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborevwori for allegedly supplying false information about his academic qualification and date of birth to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
In the lead judgement prepared by Justice Adamu Jauro and delivered by Justice Emmanuel Agim dismissed the suit on Friday for lacking in merit.
The five-member panel of the apex court, was unanimous in holding that Aghwarianovwe’s appeal failed because he failed to show that the concurrent decisions of the two lower courts were perversed.
It noted that none of the grounds of the appeal showed that the concurrent findings of the two lower courts were pervase.
The Federal High Court, Asaba division held that Aghwarianovwe failed to prove his case and that Oborevwori was qualified to contest the last governorship election in the state.
“After a very detailed consideration of every argument of all the parties on the various issues raised, I find that no matter how the instant appeal is viewed it is bound to fail.
“There is no saving grace for it, right from the grounds of appeal, to the prominent issue of jurisdiction and now to the merit itself, the appeal was dead on arrival, with zero chance of success.
“Flowing from the foregoing, I find no merit in the instant appeal. I dismiss same and proceeded to affirm the earlier decisions of two lower courts,” he held.
Justice Jauro ordered Ikie to pay N3 million each as costs to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Governor.
Chief Ikie, a governorship aspirant of the PDP, had in October 2022 taken Oborevwori and the PDP to court, alleging that the former submitted false documents to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to aid his qualification for the 2019 House of Assembly election in Delta State.
In the suit which was initially assigned to the Hon. Justice Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja, but was transferred to Asaba, Delta State, Ikie also claimed that as a result of the alleged forged documents, Oborevwori was not qualified to contest the 2023 governorship election.
While denying the allegation of forgery, Oborevwori and PDP objected that the suit was statute-barred, pointing out that documents submitted to INEC in 2018 towards the 2019 general election, could not be a ground for disqualification of a candidate in 2023.
The trial court upheld the defendants’ objection, saying that Ikie failed woefully to substantiate the allegations of forgery.
Dissatisfied, Ikie approached the Court of Appeal to appeal the judgment, but the Court of Appeal in Abuja upheld the trial court’s decision and resolved all the issues for determination in favour of Oborevwori.