Air Marshall Isaac M Alfa V. Senator Aidoko Attai & Ors (2017)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

CHIMA CENTUS NWEZE, J.S.C.

My Lords, notwithstanding the effervescent, although divergent submissions of counsel in this appeal, for reasons that would be evident anon, the only issue this court is actually confronted with and is therefore called upon to resolve orbits within a very narrow sphere. Simply put, it is the narrow question whether having regard to the host of conflicting averments and irreconcilable entries in the documentary exhibits, the Originating Summons was the proper procedural method for agitating the appellant’s case at the trial Federal High Court (hereinafter, simply referred to the “trial court”).

The sequence of events that prompted the parties’ resort to litigation may be summed up thus. Pursuant to the relevant provisions of the Electoral Act and its Guidelines, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP, for short), on December 7, 2014, conducted its primaries. The purpose of the exercise was to select its candidate for the Kogi East Senatorial District. The appellant herein and the respondent were among the aspirants who participated in the exercise. At

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the conclusion of the said primaries, the PDP, the second respondent in this appeal, forwarded the name of the first respondent to the Independent National Electoral Commission (hereinafter, simply, called INEC) as the winner of the exercise.

Dissatisfied with the turn of events, the appellant, pronto, addressed petitions to the Kogi State Senatorial Appeal Panel; the National Chairman and the National Executive Committee of the second respondent, respectively. The appellant’s discomfiture with the unfavourable responses which his said petitions elicited knew no bounds. Indeed, he was so irked by the further affirmation of the emergence of the first respondent as the candidate of the second respondent for the said Senatorial District, that he repaired to the Federal High Court, Abuja (hereafter, simply, referred to the trial Court’) for the agitation of his grievance against these unpleasant results.

Thereat, he commenced a suit against the respondents herein. In the said suit, initiated by way of Originating Summons, he contested the emergence of the first respondent as aforesaid. In support of the said Originating

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Summons, pages 441 – 444 of Volume 1 of the record, one Segun Fiki deposed to a seven-paragraph Affidavit, pages 446 – 453 of Volume I of the record. Exhibits A-K, the fifteen documents which the deponent annexed to his Affidavit, could be found at pages 454 -610 of the record.

The respondents not only, vigorously and stridently, opposed the initiating process, that is, the Originating Summons of December 19, 2014; but also its subsequent amended versions of February 19, 2015 and March 23, 2015. While the second respondent’s (second defendant at the trial Court) Counter Affidavit to the First Amended Originating Summons could be found at pages 632 -766 of the record; their Counter Affidavit to the Further Amended Originating Summons are contained at pages 1642 – 1767 of the record.

In addition, the third respondent (as third defendant) greeted the appellant’s suit (plaintiff at the trial Court) with a preliminary objection. The objection, which interrogated the trial Court’s jurisdiction, was predicated on such grounds as: want of jurisdiction or, alternatively, the impropriety of agitating the suit by the Originating Summons Procedure:

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whether the Writ of Summons was not the more appropriate mode of commencing the suit etc. Although several grounds were canvassed, only the fourth ground is germane to the narrow question in this appeal. It is the ground that contended that ex facie the suit was of a hostile and contentious nature and thus not suitable for determination by the Originating Summons Procedure.

Sequel to the copious submissions of counsel, the trial Court dismissed the said objection. In particular, it found in favour or the propriety of Originating Summons which was employed in commencing the suit. Expectedly, the trial Court’s Ruling triggered off the appeal at the Court of Appeal (hereinafter simply referred to as the lower Court).