A Federal High Court, Abuja, on Monday, dismissed the suit
seeking to challenge former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s eligibility to vie
for the office of the president.
Delivering judgment, Justice Inyang Ekwo, dismissed the suit
on the grounds that the plaintiff that instituted the case lacked the locus
standi (legal right) to do so.
Justice Ekwo described the plaintiff as a “busy body and
meddlesome interloper.”
The News Agency of Nigeria reports that a group,
Incorporated Trustees of Egalitarian Mission for Africa, in a suit marked:
FHC/ABJ/CS/177/2019 had sued Atiku, the People’s Democratic Party, the
Independent National Electoral Commission and the Attorney General of the
Federation as 1st to 4th respondents respectively.
The EMA challenged Atiku’s eligibility to contest for the
presidency on the grounds that he was not a Nigerian citizen by birth.
The group asked the court to hold, among others, that
considering the provisions of Sections 25(1) &(2) and 131(a) of the
constitution and the circumstances surrounding the former vice president’s
birth, he cannot contest for the top office.
NAN also reports that the Adamawa State Government, through
its Attorney-General (AG), had on July 27, 2021, sought an order of the court
to be joined in the suit.
The court, in the motion dated April 26 and filed June 24,
granted the prayer of the AG of Adamawa to be joined in the case as the 5th
defendant.
The Adamawa government had told the court that Atiku was
eligible to vie for the office of the president.
It said Atiku, against whom the suit was primarily directed,
is a citizen of Nigeria from Adamawa who had been elected as a governor of the
state in 1999 and served as the vice president of the country between 1999 to
2007.
It stated that the suit threatened the right of not just the
ex-vice president to contest the office of the president “but that of the
citizens of Nigeria, of Adamawa origin covering 12 out of the 21 Local
Government Areas in the state.”
(NAN)
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