A Federal High Court, Abuja has barred the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Timipre Sylva from contesting the November 11 election in Bayelsa State.
Justice Donatus Okorowo, who handed down the ruling late Monday, stated that Sylva who also served as the minister of state for petroleum resources in the President Mohammadu Buhari administration, was sworn in twice as governor and ruled for five years adding that he would breach the 1999 constitution as amended if he was allowed to re-contest.
According to Okorowo, Sylva was not qualified to run in the forthcoming November poll because he would have spent more than eight years in office as governor of the state if he wins and is sworn in.
Citing the Marwa vs Nyako case at the Supreme Court, Okorowo maintained that the drafters of the country’s constitution stated that nobody should be voted for as governor more than two times and that the parties to the suit agreed that Sylva was voted into office twice.
According to the judge, the Supreme Court had also ruled in the case of Marwa vs Nyako that nobody can expand the constitution or its scope. The judge held that if Sylva was allowed to contest the next election, it would mean a person could contest as many times as they wanted.
In its reaction, the APC said it would appeal the ruling. Spokesman for the APC Bayelsa campaign organisation, Mr Perry Tukuwei, said in a statement in Yenagoa that the party was confident the Court of Appeal would invalidate the ruling the lower court.
“This reassurance is in reaction to a judgement which has the Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate written all over it by a Federal High Court in Abuja in an already failed bid to dash the hopes of Bayelsa people to have their preferred candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva, as the next helmsman at Creek Haven by February 14, 2024.
“Sections 29 and 84 of the 2022 Electoral Act state that only persons who contested primaries of a political party that has the locus standi to file a pre-election matter to challenge the qualification of the party’s candidate in any election. Hence the suit filed by one Chief Demesuoyefa Kolomo who is not a member of the APC and didn’t contest our party’s governorship primaries do not have the locus standi to sue in the matter.
“Section 285 of the 1999 Nigerian constitution enjoins any aggrieved party to file election matter within 14 days of the occurrence of the event, but this case was filed on the 13th of June 2023 whereas INEC published the names of the governorship candidates for Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi on May 12.
“Thus, the case was filed outside the constitutional prescribed 14 days, thereby making the case statute barred,” he said.
