BY BARTHOLOMEW MADUKWE
LAGOS—Senator Oluremi Tinubu of Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, will today know her fate in the appeal by Labour Party, LP, and its candidate, Mr. Oladapo Durosinmi-Etti, against the judgment of the election Tribunal, Lagos, which upheld her declaration by Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as winner of the April 9 Lagos Central senatorial election.

The Appeal Court, had last, fixed today for judgment, after listening to submissions by appellants and the respondents.

LP and Durosinmi-Etti, seeking the nullification of Mrs. Remi Tinubu’s election to the Senate, are sking the Court of Appeal to order a fresh election.

According to LP and Durosinmi-Etti, Mrs. Tinubu’s victory at election should to be upturned on the grounds of non-appearance of their party logo on the ballot papers used for the election.

Counsel to Labour Party, Chief Chukwuma Ekomaru, SAN, at the hearing of the appeal, told the court that his client’s petition was dismissed solely because his pre-hearing notice was issued through a letter to the Tribunal’s Secretary, and argued that the pre- hearing notice need not come in the form of a motion.

Ekomaru argued that such dismissal contravened recent decisions of the Court of Appeal, citing the case of Aliyu Ibrahim Gebi v Alhaji Garba Dahiru and others, where recently (August 22, 2011) an Appeal Court decisions in Jos, admitted that the issuance of pre-hearing notice could be done by either a letter, by motion on notice or a motion ex-parte.

Senator Tinubu’s counsel, Prof. Yemi Osinbajo, SAN, in his submission countered appellant counsel’s position on the pre-hearing notice with the Sokoto Appeal Court, which held that pre-hearing notice should be by a motion to the tribunal and not through a letter.

He urged the court to dismiss the appeal, saying “there is no relief before the court seeking nullification of the election.”