The court of Appeal sitting in Ilorin has affirmed Bashir Bolarinwa as the authentic Chairman of the All Progressives Congress in Kwara State, upholding the position of the APC National Working Committee.
This judgment came exactly one week after the same court in an interlocutory appeal upheld the nomination of AbdulRahman AbdulRazaq as the APC governorship candidate in Kwara.
The Appeal Court in a judgement delivered on Tuesday and read by Justice Ibrahim Saulawa upheld the expulsion of Ishola Balogun-Fulani and his executive members from the party by the National Working Committee of the party.
The court had contended in the judgment that the state executive committee of a party is only an appendage of its national headquarters and is not imbued with the powers to conduct primaries for national elections.
The three-man panel affirmed that the high court ruling was built on nothing as the court lacked jurisdiction to hear the Balogun-Fulani’s case challenging his dismissal as the APC chairman in the state.
Having last week ruled in an interlocutory appeal that the court lacked jurisdiction to hear Balogun-Fulani’s case, the appeal court allowed the APC’s main appeal but dismissed the ‘sister appeal’ by Bolarinwa because it amounted to a “mere academic exercise”.
The court said it would amount to a waste of time ruling on the Bashiru Bolarinwa appeal since the issues in it were similar to the ones in the main appeal filed by the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee of the APC.
Bolarinwa is a co-applicant in the appeal filed by the APC NWC.
However, the appeal court struck out all the orders earlier granted by the lower court because the court lacked the jurisdiction to issue such reliefs.
The appeal court held that the State High Court lacked jurisdiction to hear the matter because various conditions precedent were not met, saying the court had acted in error to hear it at all.
