The April general elections are set for the storm session if the court accedes to the request of the Peoples Mandate Party to stop the April 9 presidential poll.
The Court of Appeal, Abuja, on Wednesday, reserved judgment in a petition by the PMP and its presidential candidate in the April 14, 2007 presidential election, Dr. Arthur Nwankwo, asking it to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission from conducting the election.
The five justices of the court, led by Justice Muhammed Garba, adjourned the petition for judgment after an agreement by the lawyer to the petitioners, Nnabuike Edechime and lawyers to the respondents, Wole Olanipekun (SAN) and Kanu Agabi (SAN).
It is barely two months to the commencement of the poll.
The case brings to memory the June 12, 1993 drama.
On the eve of the famous June 12, 1993 presidential election, the infamous Association for Better Nigeria secured a midnight judgment stopping the poll.
The ABN was headed by Arthur Nzeribe, a Senator between 1999 and 2007.
Though the then Chairman of the nation’s electoral body, Prof. Humphrey Nwosu, discountenanced the court order and conducted the election, the order was central to the controversies that followed the annulled June 12 exercise.
While the election held in defiance of her judgment, Ikpeme also gave another ruling, halting the announcement of the results midway into the exercise.
The court verdict was cited by the former dictator, Gen. Ibrahim Babangida (retd.) in annulling the June 12 poll, won by the late business mogul, Chief Moshood Kashimawo Abiola of the defunct Social Democratic Party.
In the current effort to stop the April 2 presidential election, the PMP and its candidate, Nwankwo, are asking the court for an order of interlocutory injunction restraining the INEC and the Resident Electoral Commissioners in the 36 states of the Federation and Abuja from conducting any fresh presidential poll in Nigeria in April 2011 or any other date.
They are also asking the court to stop INEC from taking steps or further steps, whatsoever and howsoever, towards the conduct of any such elections for the office of the President of Nigeria until the determination of their petition challenging the 2007 election of the late President Umaru Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
Jonathan is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in this year’s presidential poll.
They also want an order of interlocutory injunction restraining Jonathan from presenting himself or allowing himself to be presented to INEC as a candidate in any presidential election to be held in Nigeria on any date pending the determination of the petition.
They asked the court to strike out the name of the late Umaru Yar’Adua from their petition, request that was granted during the proceedings on Wednesday.
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