The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Thursday, affirmed that the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Osun governorship election, Senator Ademola Adeleke, is qualified and eligible to hold office.
The PDP and Adeleke are, by their appeals, challenging the April 2, 2019 judgment by Justice Othman Musa of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) in Bwari, which voided Adeleke’s candidacy for the election on the grounds that he was not qualified, having not possessed a valid secondary school certificate.
The judgment by Justice Musa was in the suit by Wahab Raheem and Adam Habeeb, who claimed that Adeleke was not qualified, under Section 177 of the constitution to contest the governorship election.
The lawmaker was said to have been in possession of an invalid secondary school certificate.
A three-man panel of the court held in a unanimous judgment on Thursday, that the FCT High Court was wrong to have concluded that Adeleke did not complete Secondary School and that he made false representation as regards his educational qualification.
The lead judge, Justice Emmanuel Agim, faulted the trial court for assuming jurisdiction over the case filed by Wahab Raheem and Adam Habeeb outside the 14 days prescribed for pre-election cases by the constitution.
Justice Agim, said the case was statute barred, the plaintiff, having not complied with Section 285 of the Constitution in the filing of the case and the trial judge, having failed to deliver its judgment within 80 days.
He awarded cost of N3million in favour of Adeleke, to be paid by Raheem and Habeeb, who were plaintiffs at the trial court.
