Supreme Court Dismisses Suit Seeking Removal of Tinubu as President

* Fines HDP’s ex-presidential candidate N5m

Alex Enumah in Abuja 

The Supreme Court on Monday dismissed a suit seeking the removal of President Bola Tinubu from office for being frivolous and vexatious.

A five-member panel of the apex court, in a judgment, held that the suit brought by a former presidential candidate of the Hope Democratic Party (HDP), Chief Albert Owuru, was not only incompetent and lacking in merit but amounted to a waste of the court’s precious time.

The panel led by Justice Uwani Musa Aba-Aji, subsequently ordered the appellant to pay the president the sum of N5 million as cost for defending the incompetent suit.

Besides, the apex court ordered its registry not to accept any frivolous originating summons from Owuru again.

Owuru and the HDP had, in a petition filed on March 7, 2019, canvassed the nullification of the election of President Muhammadu Buhari on three grounds — that they were unlawfully excluded in the poll; that the February 23 poll was illegal, unconstitutional and a nullity because INEC has no power to shift the poll; and that a referendum conducted on February 16 produced him as winner.

But the presidential election tribunal of 2019 and the Supreme Court dismissed the petition and appeal for being incompetent and lacking in merit.

Not satisfied, Owuru again came last year with a fresh suit challenging the inauguration of President Bola Tinubu as winner of the 2023 presidential election.

He predicated his action on the grounds that a suit over the rightful occupant of the seat of power remains pending at the Supreme Court.

Owuru had claimed that by the doctrine of ‘Lis Pendens’, it is not yet the turn of Tinubu to occupy the Office of President of Nigeria, adding that the doctrine of ‘Lis Pendens’ has rendered the 2023 presidential election, as well as its outcome, illegal and an exercise in futility.

In the suit, marked SC/CV/667/2023, Owuru prayed the apex court to sack Tinubu on two major grounds — alleged non-qualification to hold office as Nigeria’s President and alleged usurpation of the office in contravention of the law.

The defendants in the suit were former President Muhammadu Buhari, the Attorney General of the Federation (AGF) and Minister of Justice, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), and Tinubu as first to fourth defendants, respectively.

He also prayed the apex court to disqualify Tinubu on account of the forfeiture of $460,000 to the United States of America over an alleged drug trafficking-related offence.

Besides the alleged forfeiture, Owuru accused Tinubu of being an active agent of the CIA, a position he claimed disqualified Tinubu from holding the office of President of Nigeria.

Specifically, Owuru prayed the Supreme Court to invoke Section 157 of the 1999 Constitution to remove Tinubu from office on the grounds of being under the control of foreign authorities.

He also asked the Supreme Court to declare him Nigeria’s President and order his immediate inauguration to reclaim his alleged usurped mandate.

Delivering judgment on Monday, the apex court held that Owuru’s conduct was unbecoming of a lawyer of over 40 years, as he claimed to be.

The apex court in addition lambasted him for taking it for a ride, wasting its precious time with baseless suit and gross abuse of court processes. 

The Court of Appeal had previously imposed a fine of N40 million on Owuru, to be paid to Tinubu, INEC, and others, for filing this suit against them.