By Innocent Anaba

THE All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP, candidate in the last governorship election in Cross River State, Mr Iheke Solomon, has asked the Supreme Court, Abuja, to set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal, which upheld that the tenure of Governor Liyel Imoke of the state, started when he took his oath of office after the re-run election ordered by the court.

He wants the apex court to set aside the Court of Appeal judgment and allow his appeal.

Counsel to Solomon, Dame Carol Ajie, in the appeal, is contending that Court of Appeal misdirected itself in law when it held that the interpretation of section 180(2) (a) of the 1999 constitution, revolves round the interpretation of the words “in the case of a person first elected as Governor under this Constitution” and failed to take into account that Imoke was a person first elected as Governor of Cross River State under the 1999 constitution.”

According to her, “the Court of Appeal misdirected in law when it said that the taking of the oath of allegiance and oath of office, twice in each case, in which the plaintiff Governor had indulged, is the basis for calculating the four-year term, and that a nullification of the previous election of the plaintiff also nullified his previous oath of allegiance and the oath of office; when Oaths are solemn pledges designed to defend and preserve the Constitution pursuant to the seventh schedule of the 1999 constitution.”

She also agued that “the Court of Appeal erred in law in shutting its eyes to the circumstances of the plaintiff’s re-run election, when it held that “the nullification of an election renders the said election purported, non-existent, void ab initio, never to have held or taken place at all for the purpose of and in the eyes of the law.

“When a thing is void ab initio then in law, it never happened or existed and would have no effect whatsoever” when though the election was nullified, but the nature of oath of allegiance to Nigeria, administered on Imoke was not capable of extinction or nullification.”

According to her, the appellate court “erred in law in holding that the suit was competent when the court of first Instance lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the plaintiff’s claim, which sought to interfere with the statutory functions of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to conduct, schedule and regulate elections into political offices, and thereby occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice.”