The Abuja Division of the Federal High Court, on Monday, dismissed a suit that sought the removal of President Muhammadu Buhari from office.
The court, in a judgement that was delivered by Justice Inyang Ekwo, held that the suit which was brought before it by a former presidential candidate, Ambrose Owuru, lacked merit.
Describing the legal action as baseless, frivolous, irritating, and vexatious, Justice Ekwo held that it was not only statute barred, but also constitued a gross abuse of the judicial process.
The court further held that the suit was an affront to the supremacy of the Supreme Court which had earlier dismissed a similar request by the plaintiff.
Owuru, who was the presidential candidate of the Hope Democratic Party, HDP, had approached the court, praying it to sack President Buhari from office, insisting that the election through which he won his re-election in 2019, was fraught with manifest irregularities.
The plaintiff urged the court to declare that he was the authentic person that ought to have been sworn in as President instead of Buhari who contested the said election on the platform of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Among other things, he contended that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, assisted President Buhari to manipulate the outcome of the election against him by shifting the earlier date it fixed for the poll.
He specifically prayed the court to determine the legality or otherwise of INEC’s decision to postpone the election date from February 16 to March 23, 2019.
According to the plaintiff, INEC acted against the Constitution in illegal and unlawful ways and manners the presidential poll was shifted, maintaining that the declaration of President Buhari as the winner of the unlawful act should be declared null and void and of no effect.
Owuru, who is a British-trained lawyer that was called to the Nigerian Bar in 1984, told the court that prior to the postponment of the election, he emerged the winner of a referendum he said was conducted and monitored by both foreign and local organizations.
He told the court that he had at the end of the said referendum, garnered over 50million votes, which he said was far and above the number of votes that other candidates that contested the presidential election secured.
He argued that the petition he lodged against Buhari after the election was not adjudicated upon by the Supreme Court as required by law.
He claimed that his petition was unjustly dismissed by the apex court following his absence which was occasioned by a discrepancy in the hearing date was conveyed to him.
Consequently, Owuru urged the high court to validate his case by removing Buhari and declaring him the President.
He further applied for an order to compel President Buhari to refund all monies he “illegally” collected as salaries, emoluments, and security votes.
More so, the plaintiff prayed the court to halt the forthcoming presidential election and order his immediate swearing-in as President for a four-year tenure of office.
Aside from President Buhari, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, was also cited as a Defendant in the suit.
In his judgement on Monday, Justice Ekwo dismissed the suit for being frivolous.
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