JUST IN : Appeal Court fines lawyer N40m over suit against Tinubu’s inauguration

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has imposed N40 milion fine against an Abuja-based lawyer, Ambrose Owuru, for filing a frivolous suit with which he had sought to prevent the May 29 inauguration.

In a judgment on Thursday, a three-member panel of the court was unanimous in holding that the appeal by Owuru and his party, the Hope Democratic Party (HDP) amounted to an abuse of the court process.

In the lead judgment, Justice Jamil Tukur held that the appeal was an invitation for the court to review its earlier decision, which it cannot do.

Justice Tukur said the issues in the appeal had earlier been determined by the court while sitting as an election petition court after the 2019 election, with a judgment given on August 22, 2019.

He equally found that the Supreme Court had also heard the case and pronounced it with a judgment given on October 28, 2019.

Justice Tukur held that the case, having been litigated up to the Supreme Court, it was an abuse of the judicial process for Owuru and his party to seek to want to have the matter relitigated.

He upheld the January 30 judgment by Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court, Abuja which earlier dismissed the case for being an abuse of court process.

Justice Tukur proceeded to dismiss the appeal and ordered Owuru to pay each of the respondents N10million in cost.

The respondents are President Muhammadu Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Bola Tinubu.

The appeal by Owuru and HDP was against the January 30 judgment by Justice Ekwo, dismissing their suit in which Owuru had sought to be sworn in as Buhari’s successor.

Owuru claimed, among others, that he won a referendum purportedly conducted within the period of the postponement of the 2019 presidential election.

He argued that by the victory he recorded in the 2019 referendum, no other person should occupy the office of the president until he serves out his tenure.

Owuru and the HDP raised similar issues in the petition they filed against the 2019 presidential election, which petition was dismissed by the Supreme Court for want of jurisdiction.

The election petition court, while dismissing Owuru’s petition in its August 22, 2029 judgment, held among others that issue of referendum raised in the petition did not form a ground to challenge the outcome of an election.