An Appeal Court on Friday cleared former Minister of Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva to participate in the Saturday governorship election.
This comes less than 24 hours to conduct Governorship election in Bayelsa
The appellate court on dismissed the last of the chains of suits seeking exclusion of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Governorship candidate in the gubernatorial poll.
Delivering judgment in an appeal instituted against Sylva and two others by Isikima Johnson, Justice Binta Zubar held that the suit was not only unjusticeable but brought in bad faith by the appellant against the respondents.
The Court agreed with James Ogwu Onoja, SAN, that the allegations of taking of oath of governorship office twice being held against Sylva cannot stand in the face of law because the first one had been invalidated by competent Courts.
In the appeal marked CA/ABJ/CV/1052/2023, Justices Zubar also dismissed the allegations against APC that its April 14, 2023 primary election which produced Sylva as flagbearer was done in contravention of provisions of the law.
In unanimous judgment, the court agreed with Onoja’s arguments that the overwhelming evidence adduced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and APC pointed to the facts that all legal steps were taken in the conduct of the primary election.
Mr Onoja had in his brief on behalf of Sylva narrated how APC adopted direct primary as mode of electing the governorship candidate .
Also, how a 5-man Electoral Committee on April 14 conducted the election in 106 Wards of the 8 Local Government Areas of Bayelsa.
NAN
