Lagos: Supreme Court affirms Sanwo-Olu’s election victory
The Supreme Court in Abuja has rejected the appeal filed by Labour Party (LP) candidate Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour to nullify the election that brought in Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu as the Lagos state governor
The supreme court declared that the appeal was meritless in a ruling on Friday, January 12.
Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the Labour Party and Abdul-Azeez Adediran, popularly known as Jandor, the PDP candidate, argued that Mr. Sanwo-Olu’s nomination as a candidate for the election was invalidated because his running mate, Obafemi Hamzat, was unfit to run alongside him due to his dual citizenship of Nigeria and the United States.
Justice Mohammed Lawal Garba ruled that, being a natural-born citizen of Nigeria, Deputy Governor Femi Hamzat did not lose his citizenship upon obtaining the US Green Card.
Justice Garba ruled that a Nigerian citizen by birth who acquires citizenship of another country cannot be qualified to contest an elective position, except where the person relinquishes the Nigerian citizens in a manner provided by Section 29 of the Constitution.
He also affirmed that Sanwo-Olu and Hamzat were qualified to contest the election.
Recall that Mr Sanwo-Olu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared the winner of the governorship poll in the state by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
He scored a total of 762,134 votes against his main challengers — Olajide ‘Jandor’ Adediran of the PDP who polled 62,449 and Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour of the LP got 312,329 votes.
