The Supreme Court, on Monday, dismissed a suit seeking to sack President Bola Tinubu from office.
The apex court, in a unanimous decision by a five-member panel of justices, awarded a fine of N5 million against the plaintiff, Chief Ambrose Owuru, who was the presidential candidate of the Hope Democratic Party, HDP, in the 2019 general election.
The panel, which was led by Justice Uwani Musa Abba-Aji, warned the Registry of the Supreme Court not to accept any frivolous originating summons from the plaintiff again.
In the legal action he filed directly at the apex court, Owuru, among other claims, alleged that President Tinubu is an active agent of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) of the United States of America (USA), a position he argued makes him unfit to occupy the presidential seat.
The plaintiff equally urged the apex court to disqualify Tinubu on the account that he had earlier forfeited the sum of $460,000 to the government of the USA in a drug-related case.
He specifically prayed the Supreme Court to invoke section 157 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, and oust Tinubu from office for being under the control of foreign authorities.
Besides, Owuru, whose political party, HDP, had since been de-registered by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in his suit marked SC/CV/667/2023, joined ex-President Muhammadu Buhari as a defendant in the matter.
According to the British-trained lawyer who was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1982, ex-President Buhari’s tenure was illegal.
Owuru alleged that though he was the valid winner of the 2019 presidential poll, Buhari hijacked his mandate and piloted affairs of the country for eight years.
He claimed that a suit he earlier lodged before the apex court to kick Buhari out of office was technically jettisoned by the court due to a mix-up in the hearing dates.
Consequently, he argued that upon the disqualification of Tinubu for being unfit to hold the top job, the apex court should pronounce him as president and order his immediate inauguration to enable him to reclaim his usurped mandate.
Aside from President Tinubu and Buhari, other defendants in the suit are the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, as well as the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Meantime, when the matter was called up for hearing on Monday, the plaintiff, who wore his lawyer’s wig and gown, rose to argue his case by himself.
He was, however, ordered by the panel to step out of the bar and also remove his wig and gown before he could be allowed to address the court.
After he had complied with the orders, the justices queried the plaintiff on why he re-filed such a frivolous suit that had been dismissed three times.
The plaintiff’s attempt to convince the court to grant his prayers failed as the head of the panel lambasted him for conducting himself in a way she said was unbecoming of a lawyer that has spent over 40 years in the legal profession.
Besides the N5m fine, the panel threatened to forward Owuru’s name to the Legal Practitioners Disciplinary Committee, LPDC, for appropriate sanctions.
It will be recalled that the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal had on May 25, 2023, also imposed a N40 million fine against the plaintiff for filing a “frivolous” suit to stop Tinubu from being sworn in as president.
Owuru had also attempted to stop ex-President Buhari’s swearing-in.
He claimed that INEC assisted President Buhari to manipulate the outcome of the 2019 presidential election.
He contended that though the election was originally fixed for February 16, 2019, the INEC, about five hours to the commencement of the poll, announced a postponement and later held the electoral exercise on February 23, 2019.
Owuru claimed that prior to the postponement, he had emerged as the winner of a referendum he said was conducted and monitored by both foreign and local organisations.
He told the court that he had, at the end of the said referendum, garnered over 50 million votes, which he said was far and above the number of votes that other candidates that contested the presidential election, including Buhari, secured.
Owuru argued that the petition he lodged against Buhari after the election was not adjudicated upon by the Supreme Court as required by law.
He claimed that his petition was unjustly dismissed by the apex court following his absence, which was occasioned by a discrepancy in the hearing date that was served to him.
He, therefore, urged the high court to validate his case by removing Buhari and declaring him the president.
He further applied for an order to compel President Buhari to refund all monies he “illegally” collected as salaries, emoluments, and security votes.
More so, the plaintiff prayed the court to halt the 2023 presidential election and order his immediate swearing-in as president for a four-year tenure of office.
Following the dismissal of his case and the conduct of the presidential election on February 25, Owuru approached the appellate court to stop the swearing-in of the then President-elect, Tinubu, a prayer the court refused.
(Vanguard News)
