Court In Rivers State Throw Out School Certificate Suit Against Muhammadu Buhari

A Federal High Court present in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, has rejected a case wanting to disqualify President Muhammadu Buhari from the 2019 elections due to complications over his school certificate.

A lawyer, Lezina Amegua, took the matter to court and urged it to force INEC to disqualify the President from the polls but the judge in charge, Justice Ishaq Sani, rejected the case for lacking merit.

Lezina wanted the court to present his original school certificate or master sheets of the said result in the court and for INEC to also prove it received the document from the incumbent President.

Justice Sani, however, felt it was a no case.

He said, “the concept of locus standi focuses not on the merit of the case, but of the person seeking to approach the court.

“The essence is to protect the court from being used as playground by professional litigants, busy bodies, meddlesome interlopers and cranks that have no real stake or interest in the subject matter of the litigation they seek to pursue.

“I agree with learned counsel for the fourth defendant that the plaintiff has no relationship with the reliefs in this suit and to grant same as rightly submitted would amount to opening the floodgates for the institution of actions, whether or not it affects the right of the plaintiff.

“There must be a dispute between a person who makes a claim and the one against whom the claim is made and the action must be justifiable.

“Plaintiff must show that the act complained of affects rights and obliga-tions peculiar or personal thereto. He must also show that his private rights have been infringed upon or there is a threat of such infringement or injury.”