The Court of Appeal in Abuja on Thursday ruled that Senator Ademola Adeleke was qualified to contest the September 2018 governorship election, saying under Section 177 of the Constitution, mere writing the examination and without passing any paper suffices to contest the governorship election.
A three-man panel court made the pronouncement in a unanimous judgment, upholding the appeals by Adeleke and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Adeleke and PDP had challenged the April 2, 2019 judgment of Justice Othman Musa of the High Court of the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja, which had declared Adeleke ineligible to contest the election on the grounds that he forged his secondary school credentials submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission in 2018.
That court had also declared Adeleke a dropout of the Ede Muslim Grammar School in Ede, Osun State, and therefore not qualified under Section 177(d) of the Constitution to contest last year’s governorship election in Osun State.
However, Justice Emmanuel Agim, who delivered the lead judgment of the Court of Appeal, nullified that decision, holding that the suit, having not been filed within 14 days after Adeleke’s Form CF001 was submitted to INEC or 14 days after his name was published as a candidate in the September 2018 election, the suit filed before the FCT High Court, by virtue of Section 285 of the Constitution, had become statute-barred.
The learned justice added that the failure of the FCT High Court to deliver its verdict within 60 days of the filing of the suit had rendered the lower court’s judgment a nullity.
The appellate court also held the affidavit evidence of the West African Examination Council and result ledger attached to it showing that Adeleke was not a dropout.
The court was of the view that the PDP governorship candidate actually sat the May 1981 examination of the body at Muslim Grammar School, Ede.
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