Kaduna Central: Court Strikes Out Suit Against Sen Usman’s PDP Nomination

Justice James Omotosho has struck out the suit seeking to invalidate the nomination of Sen. Lawal Usman as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s candidate for the Feb. 25 Kaduna Central Senatorial election.

Justice Omotosho of the Federal High Court, Abuja on Wednesday in the judgment, said the suit, filed by Ibrahim Usman, an aggrieved aspirant in the party’s primary held on May 23, 2022, was an abuse of court process.

The court said the matter, having been decided by an Appeal Court and subsequently affirmed by the Supreme Court, lacked merit.

He said though the plaintiff’s suit, marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/333/23, was not statute barred, having been filed within the 14-day period prescribed by the law, he however agreed with the defence that the subject matter of the instant suit was similar to the earlier one he filed before a FHC sitting in Kaduna, which had been decided by the apex court.

He said for a lower court to review the decision of a superior court did not go with “the doctrine of stare decisis,” and such a suit had been caught up by “the principle of res judicata.”

He, therefore, said that Usman’s suit constituted an abuse of court process for asking the lower court to review the decision of the Appeal Court and the judgment of the Supreme Court.

The judge, who said that instituting the case was like flogging the dead horse, said the court also found that the action was a deliberate attempt to turn the decision of the court over its head and to go into judicial rascality.

“This suit ought to be thrown into the dustbin. The matter has already been decided and cannot be reinstituted.

“The plaintiff is bound to obey the decision of the Supreme Court as you cannot put something on nothing and expect it to stand,” he said.

According to Justice Omotosho, no matter how incorrect a judgment of a higher court might be, it cannot be reviewed by a lower court.