C /River Senatorial By-Election: Appeal Court Reserves Judgment On Motion To Set Aside Its Judgment

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja has reserved judgment in the separate applications brought before it regarding the Cross River Senatorial District by-election to a date that will be communicated to the parties. The Court in Calabar, Cross River State earlier declared Agom Jarigbe of the Peoples Democratic Party as the lawful candidate of PDP for the December 5th, 2020 By-election and not Stephen Odey. Consequently, the Court invalidated the Certificate of Return issued to Odey by the Independent National Electoral Commission and ordered the commission to issue same to Agom Jarigbe. Not satisfied with the court verdict, Odey through his counsel approached the Appeal Court in Abuja asking for review as well as set aside the judgement made in favour of Jarigbe. His counsel, Mubarak Adekilekun argued that Jarigbe did not participate in all the processes that led to the bye election as required by the law. But Agom Jarigbe’s counsel, Emmanuel Ukala cited order 20 rule 4 of the Procedural Rules of the Appeal Court to argue that the court can not sit over an appeal in its own judgment. After listening to the parties, the five man panel of the appellate court justices led by the President of the Court, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, reserved for a later date to deliver judgment. Since the senatorial by-election was conducted, Odey and Jarigbe have been enmeshed in a serious legal battle to determine over who is the rightful winner of the poll.