The Supreme Court has upheld the nomination of Ekiti State Governor, Biodun Oyebanji, as the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for the June 20 governorship election, bringing an end to the legal battle over his candidacy.
In a unanimous judgment delivered on Friday, a five-member panel of the apex court dismissed the appeal filed by APC aspirant Abimbola Olawumi, ruling that it lacked merit.
The decision affirmed the earlier judgment of the Court of Appeal, which had validated Oyebanji’s emergence as the APC governorship candidate.
Olawumi had challenged the outcome of the party’s primary, alleging that she was unlawfully excluded from the nomination process and urging the court to nullify Oyebanji’s candidacy.
Delivering the lead judgment, Justice Mohammed Idris upheld preliminary objections against applications filed by the appellant to regularise her notice of appeal and appellate brief. The court found that one of the supporting written addresses was unsigned and that the documents exceeded the page limit prescribed by the Supreme Court Rules, rendering the applications incompetent.
The apex court also ruled that the first three grounds of appeal were invalid because they did not arise from the Court of Appeal’s decision, leading to the dismissal of the issues formulated from them.
On the remaining grounds, the Supreme Court agreed with the appellate court that Olawumi’s brief was incompetent despite her pending application to regularise it.
The justices further held that the Court of Appeal was right not to invoke its powers under Section 15 of the Court of Appeal Act to determine the substantive suit, noting that the Federal High Court had already ruled the case was statute-barred.
The Supreme Court also rejected Olawumi’s request to determine the substantive matter under Section 22 of the Supreme Court Act, stressing that the constitutional 180-day deadline for resolving pre-election disputes had already elapsed.
The ruling finally settles the dispute over Oyebanji’s nomination, confirming him as the APC candidate in the Ekiti governorship election.
Oyebanji has since been declared winner of the 2026 Ekiti governorship election after securing 319,224 votes, defeating all other candidates.
