Uncertain future awaits Chief Victor Oye and Prof Charles Soludo as the Court of Appeal sitting in Kano exposed a fatal mistake by the over 5 Senior Advocates of Nigeria by filing their Notice of Appeal out of time.
Reports from the Chief Victor Oye camp of the All Progressives Grand Alliance and Prof. Charles Soludo Campaign Organization shows there is palpable tension since it was revealed in Court that the Notice of Appeal filed on their behalf by their legal team at the Court of Appeal Kano Division was incurably defective and thereby incompetent and deserving of being struck out by the Court.
The Notice of Appeal seen by the our correspondent had the names of five Senior Advocates of Nigeria and personally signed by Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN also had the names of Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu SAN, Patrick I. N. Ikwueto SAN, Ken Mozia SAN, Bode Olanipekun SAN and seven other lawyers listed as Appellants’ Counsel was filed on the 30th July, 2021 which is clearly outside the 14 days duration provided by the Constitution for an appeal in a pre-election matter to be filed.
The judgment of Justice Musa Ubale of the Jigawa High Court being appealed against was delivered on the 30th June, 2021.
One of the lawyers listed on the Notice who also is a member of the Victor Oye led NWC of APGA was seen shouting that by willingly withdrawing a validly filed Notice of Appeal filed on 6th July, 2021 to rely on another one filed out of time on 30th July, 2021 was like shooting themselves in the foot and that they have lost the case.
The NWC member lamented how after heavily paying the senior lawyers and flying them by private jets to Kano for the Appeal, they had jeopardized the Appeal.
“We cannot be paying six SANs and making such elementary
and fatal mistakes.” The Yusuf Alli, SAN whose name did not appear on the Notice of Appeal was however in court as the sixth Senior Advocate engaged by the Oye team. Four of the six were in Court today except Bode Olanipekun and Ken Mozia.
Further, in his fury, he disclosed that the legal team for some inexplicable reason withdrew the Notice of Appeal filed within time on 6th July for one which was filed out of time on 30th July. There was no reason for us to shoot ourselves in the leg. We have just lost a case we had clear chances of winning and this is a clear case of too many hands spoil the broth, he lamented.
“We must find out who the saboteur is in our legal team. If not for deliberate sabotage how can we undo all the correct things we have done for the wrong things. I suspect one of the SANs may be working for our opponents, either the other faction or for another party. You know they may be having other cases for our opponents in the other faction or other political parties.
“We must investigate and find out immediately.
We filed correctly and within time and we withdrew it for a Notice that was filed out of time. We withdrew our prayer for deeming order, we withdrew our prayer to transmit further records, in fact these Senior Advocates killed our case for us and I can tell you, there is no need for us to go to the Supreme Court.”
It would be recalled that on Friday, 30th July 2021, the Special Panel of the Court while delivering its ruling in the Motion filed by Chief Edozie Njoku seeking leave to appeal as an interested person struck out the Motion for having been filed out of time as it was filed on the 22nd July, 2021 more than 7 days after the constitutionally required 14 days within which to file any appeal to a pre-election matter. It is therefore expected that in similar matters, Courts are bound to reach similar decisions.
Hence having struck out Chief Edozie Njoku’s Motion, the Court of Appeal is also expected to strike out the Notice of Appeal filed on behalf of Chief Victor Oye.
The implication of this will mean that the dreams of the Oye led APGA and Governor Willie Obiano to ensure that Prof. Charles Soludo emerges as the candidate of APGA is dimmed and clears the coast for Hon. Chukwuma Umeoji who has been listed by INEC as the candidate of the Party.
The mood in the Soludo campaign has been quite moody since the revelations came to the fore and the once boisterous office now looks like a shadow of its former self. Typical of politicians, with this development, it is now expected that political realignments will begin and how Hon. Umeoji and his team handle this will determine how much of the realignment they will benefit from though all the while his campaign had insisted that Governor is the leader of the Party and he has only come to continue and expand the good works.
