In a judgment delivered by Justice Uchechukwu Onyemenam of the Court of Appeal, the appellate court held that Justice Uche Ogomoh of the Federal High Court in Ibadan, went beyond the reliefs sought by parties when she recognised the caretaker committee.
The dispute arose from a judgment delivered on January 30 in which Ogomoh held that the caretaker committee led by Abdurahman Mohammed and Senator Samuel Anyanwu was the legitimate leadership structure of the party.
The Court of Appeal said none of the parties before the lower court sought such a declaration from the Federal High Court.
“In the instant case, there is clearly a live issue where the trial court went outside the reliefs sought to recognize and uphold a factional caretaker committee,” Onyemenam held.
The appellate court said the trial court’s decision was tied to the legitimacy of the Ibadan convention, which had already been nullified by the supreme court.
The court added that any leadership structure purportedly created or validated by the convention lacked legal foundation.
“Once the Convention itself has been pronounced null, void and of no effect by the Supreme Court, any superstructure erected upon it is necessarily without legal foundation,” the court said.
The appellate court held that the legal basis of the caretaker committee recognised by the Federal High Court had been extinguished by the supreme court’s decision.
The court said ordering a retrial would serve no useful purpose because the substantive issues had already been settled by the apex court.
“This Court would be driven to the conclusion that the offending portions of the judgment, and indeed the judgment as a whole insofar as the excess permeates the decision, are a nullity and liable to be set aside ex debito justitiae,” the judgment reads.
The court also warned against making consequential orders that could amount to reviewing the Supreme Court’s decision.
“A direction to the trial court to retry an issue that has been settled at the apex level would, in effect, invite it either to repeat what has already been decided or to purport to sit in judgment over the Supreme Court, both of which the law forbids,” Onyemenam said.
The court held that previous decisions of both the Court of Appeal and the supreme court had resolved the core issues in dispute.
The judgment was supported by other members of the three-man panel, Justices Mohammed Mustapha and Okon Abang.
The ruling effectively removes the legal basis upon which the Federal High Court recognised the caretaker committee and could have implications for decisions taken by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) regarding the faction’s status.
