The Supreme Court in Nigeria has dismissed a suit filed by Mr Celestine Omehia, seeking to join in a suit to determine whether the first tenure of Governor Rotimi Amaechi ended on May 29, 2011 or in October.
Delivering judgment on the suit, a five man panel of the apex court held that Mr Omehia had exhausted all avenues to challenge the election of Mr Rotimi Amaechi as Governor of Rivers State and cannot approach the apex court through the back door.
Mr Omehia, a candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, in Rivers State, had sought to cash in on the judgment of a Federal High Court which held that Governor Rotimi Amaechi’s first tenure ended on May 29, 2011.
Mr Cyprian Chukwu, a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, had in 2010, applied to a Federal High Court in Abuja, asking it to interpret the Supreme Court’s judgment which in 2007 removed Omehia from office and declared Amaechi as the governor of the state.
The court, presided over by Justice Abdu Kafarati ruled that Governor Amaechi’s first tenure ended on May 29, 2011.
After the High Court’s decision, Omehia, who was not a party to the High Court’s proceedings, applied to the Court of Appeal to be allowed to join in the matter as an interested party, contending that he was a party in the apex court judgment that was interpreted by the High Court.
Both Amaechi and Chukwu, however told the Supreme Court panel headed by Justice Muntaka Coomassie that the Abuja division of the Appeal Court, erred in law, when it granted Omehia the leave to appeal against the High Court’s judgment, even though he was not a party in the substantive suit that culminated to the appeal.
A five-man panel of the apex court, had on November 11, 2013 fixed February 7 for judgment after parties adopted their briefs of arguments in the consolidated appeals that were filed by Governor Amaechi and a chieftain of the People’s Democratic Party Rivers State, Cyprian Chukwu.
