The Court of Appeal sitting in Makurdi on Friday upheld the election of former senate president, David Mark as the senator representing Benue South Senatorial District in the February 20 rerun legislative election.
While delivering the lead judgment, Justice Obande Ogunya affirmed the judgment of the lower tribunal, which had earlier dismissed the petition of Daniel Onjeh of the All Progressives Congress against Mark.
Justice Ogunya posited that the lower tribunal was right to have struck out Onjeh’s petition for being statute barred.
According to him, the Interpretation Act cannot apply in this case due to sui generis nature of election matters.
He explained further that the 21 days allocated to a petitioner to file his case started counting from the date of declaration of results.
The judge, Justice Oyebisi Omoleye, and a member of the panel, Justice Cecilia Jumbo, both agreed with the lead judgment read by Ogunya and accordingly dismissed the appeal.
it would be recalled that Onjeh had earlier filed a fresh petition before the tribunal asking that he be declared as the winner of the poll instead of Mark.
However, the tribunal, Chaired by Justice Abdullahi Sanya, struck out the petition on June 30 for being filed out of time.
Onjeh while reacting to the judgment expressed disappointment, but stated he would accept it in good faith since legislative matters could not go beyond that level.
