*Describes Nnaji as meddlesome interloper
*Frowns at Justice Maha for embarking on voyage of discovery
The Court of Appeal, sitting in Abuja, Friday, 6th January 2023, set aside the judgment of Justice Evelyn Maha of the Federal High Court, Abuja and reinstated Hon. Chijioke Edeoga as the gubernatorial candidate of the Labour Party in the 2023 governorship race in Enugu State.
Edeoga’s nomination was set aside by the High Court based on a suit filed by Chief Everest Nnaji (Nwakibie) who claimed he was excluded from the party’s primary election.
But upturned the lower court’s decision, the Court of Appeal restored Edeoga as the authentic candidate of the party, stressing that Nnaji, not being an aspirant, had no business challenging the outcome of the primary.
The appellate court lambasted Justice Maha of the Federal High Court for going on a voyage of discovery, wondering how the Judge “could have arrived at such a strange decision given the fact that the Supreme Court had passed several judgments on the issue of who is an aspirant entitled to bring an action”.
The court expressed shock as to why the lower court entertained Everest Nnaji’s suit in the first place, since it was obvious that he had no locus standi (legal right) to even bring the action and described the action of Justice Maha as “an unwarranted interference in the internal affairs of the Labour Party”.
The Court of Appeal therefore decided that even the respondent’s brief filed before it by Nnaji’s lawyer “was incompetent having been filed out of time”.
The Court of Appeal adopted the four issues formulated by Barr. Alexander Obodo (SAN), counsel to the Labour Party.
On the first issue, the court agreed with Obodo that since Nnaji did not participate in the primary election, he lacked the locus standi to challenge the outcome and that the lower court should have dismissed his suit without wasting any further time.
Having held that Chief Nnaji lacked the legal rights to even bring the suit thereby robbing the court of jurisdiction, the Court of Appeal furrher held that there was no need to waste their time in considering the other issues in contention.
The Court having arrived at the decision, dismissed the judgement of the lower court and allowed the appeal and affirmed Hon. Edeoga as the authentic candidate of the Labour Party for the Enugu State gubernatorial election.
