Supreme Court affirms Victor Oye as APGA’s chairman

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Supreme Court affirms Victor Oye as APGA’s chairman

The Supreme Court has declared Chief Victor Oye as the valid Chairman of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

Delivering judgment in the appeal, yesterday, the apex court in a unanimous judgment held that the internal issues of political parties were outside the jurisdiction of courts and consequently upheld the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which resolved the leadership tussle in APGA in favour of Oye and also upheld the primary election conducted by his leadership, which produced Soludo as APGA’s governorship candidate for the November 6, 2021 governorship election.

According to the appellate court, the trial court erred by entertaining a suit wherein it lacked jurisdiction.

In their unanimous decision, the seven-member panel resolved the issue against the appellant.

The apex court in the judgment, delivered by Justice Mary Odili, held that it was clear that the appellant engaged in abuse of judicial process.

According to Odili, the subject matter of the suit is not justiciable because it bothers on internal matters of a political party.

She held that the appellant engaged in forum shopping by taking a matter, which emanated from Anambra State, to a court in Jigawa State.

While the panel berated lawyers to the appellant for engaging in unethical conduct by filing such a suit in the first place, it blamed the Jigawa High Court for accepting to hear the suit that was outside his jurisdiction.

Consequently, the panel slammed a fine of N1 million against the appellant for abuse of court process.

The panel held that the application for joinder by Chief Edozie Njoku was irrelevant and consequently dismissed it