The Lagos State candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 governorship election Abdul-Azeez Olajide Adediran popularly known as Jandor has asked the President of the Court of Appeal Justice Monica Dongbam-Mensem to transfer the hearing of his appeal to Abuja.
In a letter dated October 23, 2023, and addressed to Justice Dongbam-Mensem, Jandor says this transfer will ensure fairness and objectivity devoid of potential meddling. The notice was received on the same day at the office of the President of the Court of Appeal.
It would be recalled that Justice Dongban-Mensem as part of efforts to eradicate political interference in the courts, transferred all election petition cases pending before the court in the 36 states to Abuja and Lagos.
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With this move, all appeal cases on governorship, and national and state assembly elections arising from tribunal judgments are now been heard by special panels in the two states instead of the 20 divisions of the court.
Appeals from the southern part of the country are being heard by special panels made up of justices across the country sitting in Lagos while appeals from the northern part of the country are being heard by special panels sitting in Abuja.
On October 13, Jandor filed a 34 grounds notice of appeal challenging the September 25th judgment of the State Election Petition Tribunal.
The 38-page document was filed by his team of lawyers led by Clement Onwuenwunor (SAN).
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu; his deputy, Obafemi Hamzat; the All Progressive Congress (APC), the Labour Party (LP) and its candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour were all listed as respondents in the notice of appeal.
In the grounds of appeal, the PDP candidate and his party, also reiterated the reliefs in their petitions, asking for the disqualification of the candidates of both the APC and LP.
Jandor also wants the Court of Appeal to hold that all the votes recorded for both candidates and the APC in the said election were wasted votes owing to their non-qualification to participate in the election.
And that having scored the third highest number of votes in the Election and having satisfied the provisions of the Electoral Ac,t 2022, he is the validly qualified candidate to be returned as the winner of the said election.
