Supreme Court Gives Final Verdict on APC Candidate for Ekiti Election

The Supreme Court confirmed the nomination of Biodun Oyebanji, the Governor of Ekiti State, as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the upcoming governorship election scheduled for June 20.

The ruling was delivered unanimously by a five-member panel, which dismissed an appeal filed by party aspirant Mrs. Abimbola Olawumi, stating that her case lacked merit.

This decision upheld an earlier judgment from the Court of Appeal on June 18, which had already validated Oyebanji’s candidacy as the APC flag bearer.

Olawumi contended that she was unlawfully excluded from the nomination process and sought to have the court invalidate the primary results along with Oyebanji’s nomination.

Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Mohammed Idris upheld preliminary objections challenging the competence of applications filed by the appellant on July 16 and July 23 to regularise her notice of appeal and appellant’s brief.

The court found that one of the accompanying written addresses was unsigned and that its pagination exceeded the limit prescribed under the Supreme Court Rules.

Consequently, the applications and the related written addresses were struck out.

Justice Idris also held that the first three grounds of appeal were incompetent because they did not arise from the decision of the Court of Appeal. As a result, the issues formulated from those grounds were also struck out.

On the remaining grounds, the apex court ruled that the Court of Appeal acted correctly in declaring Olawumi’s brief incompetent despite her pending application to regularise it.

The Supreme Court further agreed with the appellate court’s refusal to invoke its powers under Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act to determine the substantive originating summons, noting that the Federal High Court had already held that the suit was statute-barred.

The court also declined the appellant’s request to invoke Section 22 of the Supreme Court Act to hear the substantive case, holding that the constitutional 180-day period prescribed for determining pre-election matters had already expired.

The judgment effectively ends the legal contest over Oyebanji’s nomination and affirms his candidacy under the APC for the Ekiti State governorship election.

It will be recalled that Oyebanji has since been declared the winner of the 2026 Ekiti State governorship election after polling 319,224 votes to defeat other candidates.