By: Felix Ikpotor
The Supreme Court has again, struck out an appeal filed by the All Progressives Congress, APC, in Rivers State, challenging the judgment of a High Court in Rivers State which barred the party from conducting any primaries in the state to nominate candidates to represent the party in the forth coming election.
The court had on Tuesday, struck out a similar appeal.
A five-man panel of the court, headed by Justice Bode Rhodes-Vivour struck out the three remaining appeals filed by the APC, Ojukaye Flag Amachree and Tonye Patrick Cole, on the grounds that they were statute-barred, the appeals having been 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 judgment, which terminated the 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.
The PH Spectator reports that a judgment is being awaited tomorrow in a similar matter at the appellate court in Port Harcourt.
