Supreme Court Finally Dashes APC Hope in Rivers

Pat Stevens/

The Supreme Court has finally dashed the hope of the All Progressives Congress (APC) to present candidates for the forthcoming elections in Rivers State.

The Apex Court today struck out an appeal filed by the party challenging the judgment of a High Court in Rivers State which barred it from conducting any primaries in the state to nominate candidates for 2019 elections.

The Supreme Court judgement comes barely one week after same court stopped the APC from fielding candidates in all elections in the state.

The APC was in support Mr Tonye Cole’s candidature for the governorship election which the group led by Magnus Abe opposed.

A five-man panel of the Apex court, headed by Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour, struck out remaining three appeals filed by the APC, Ojukaye Flag-Amachree and Tonye Cole, on grounds that they were statute barred, since the appeals was filed outside the time allowed under Section 285(9) and (12) of the Constitution as amended by the 4th Alteration Act.

Justice Amina Augie, who read the lead ruling, which ended the APC appeals, said the appellants, who were not parties to the original suit were not allowed by the Appeal Court in Port-Harcourt, the opportunity to appeal the October 10, 2018 judgment because they filed their appeal out of time.

Justice Augie said the appeals, which were, this morning, consolidated by the court – SC/81/2019 (another appeal filed by APC), SC/1332/2018 (by Ojukaye Flag-Amchree) and SC/1334/2018 (by Tonye Patrick Cole and others) – are statute barred.

The judge said the appellants have no leg to stand on, since the main appeal filed by the APC -SC/1333/2018, against the October 10 judgment, had earlier been struck out by the court in the judgment delivered on Tuesday morning by Justice Amiru Sanusi.