The Court of Appeal, Abuja Judicial Division, has ruled in the separate applications brought before it that it has no jurisdiction to review and amend the decision regarding the Cross River Senatorial District by-election given by the Calabar Division of the court in the given circumstances.
In the ruling on the first application, the court gave a unanimous decision in the application brought by Joe Agi and the All Progressives Congress.
The court held that it had no jurisdiction to review its decision in the circumstances.
President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban Mensem, stated this while delivering the ruling on Saturday.
Justice Dongban-Mensem, leading the five-man panel, held that the applicants had not shown any slip for the court to amend its judgment.
She stated that the court had performed its judicial duties under Section 246 of the Constitution and has become functus officio.
The court also stated that the applicants were not sincere in their application and only sought for review when the matter was not favourable to them after it had gone through the judicial process.
“The court will not overrule is earlier decision at the whims and caprices of the parties,” the court stated.
“The court has entered judgment in its final appellate jurisdiction.
“For the upteenth time, I hereby state that the application is an abuse of the court process.
“The court has no jurisdiction to revisit the judgment. The inevitable conclusion is that the applicants’ application ought not to have been filed,” the court held.
The court also awarded cost of N1 million each in favour of the Stephen Odey and Agbom Jarigbe who are the first and second respondents in the first application.
In the second application, the court ruled similarly and dismissed the application.
The court awarded cost of N1 million each to the the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents in the second application.
The two applications brought before the Abuja Division of the court had prayed the court to review the judgment of the Calabar Division that had declared Agom Jarigbe as the winner of the Cross River North Senatorial District by-election of December 5, 2020.
In the first application marked CA/C/195/2021, Joe Agi and the All Progressives Congress had applied to the court to amend/correct and/or set aside the order of the court on the Independent National Electoral Commission to issue a certificate of return wrongly withdrawn from Agom Jarigbe.
They also sought an order of the court to set aside the dismissal of their appeal against Stephen Odey’s election on the ground that it lacked merit.
In the second application marked CA/C/199/2021, Stephen Odey prayed the court to set aside the court’s decision which allowed Jarigbe’s appeal and declared Jarigbe as the winner of the said election.
In the separate applications, the applicants had argued that the declaration of Jarigbe as the winner of the Cross River North Senatorial District by-election was unconstitutional and violates the Electoral Act.
They had argued that Jarigbe did not participate in all the stages of the electoral process