By IKECHUKWU NNOCHIRI
ABUJA—The Supreme Court, yesterday, dismissed an application urging it to review its earlier ruling on the Borno State governorship election appeal.
The Peoples' Democratic Party, PDP, and its gubernatorial candidate in the state, Alhaji Mohammed Goni, filed the application for judicial review of the judgment that affirmed the election of Governor Kashim Shetimma of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP.
However, a five-man panel of justices of the apex court, led by Justice Francis Tabai, threw out the motion, saying it was a gross abuse of court process.
Other members of the panel who concurred to the decision included Justices Muntaka Coomasie, Mary Odili, Chukwuma Enne and Olukayode Ariwoola.
Counsel to Goni, Mr Femi Falana, had, while moving his motion, urged the apex court to set aside its own judgment delivered on February 17, 2012, on the grounds that a full complement of the apex court did not sit to hear and determine the matter.
Falana contended that since the case was a constitutional matter, a Supreme Court's panel of seven instead of five justices ought to have been empanelled to handle the appeal, even as he claimed that some of the justices who sat in the earlier judgment were not supposed to have been there.
Vanguard Nigeria