Court:
Supreme Court of Court:
Supreme Court of Nigeria
Date of judgment:
19 April 2007

Constitutional law – freedom of association - whether the action of a vice president abandoning the political party whose platform he and the President were elected and joining another political party, amounted to constructive resignation from office


This case interpreted the right of freedom of association to determine whether the action of a vice president abandoning the political party whose platform he and the President were elected and joining another political party, amounted to constructive resignation from office. Consequently, warranting the president to declare the seat of the vice president vacant.

This was an appeal against the decision of the Court of Appeal (CoA) that held, inter alia, that the purported declaration by the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria of the office of the plaintiff as the Vice President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as vacant was unconstitutional and of no effect.

The Supreme court noted that there is no express provision of the vacation of office of the vice president upon defection from his sponsoring political party to a rival party. The vice president can only resign from office as per the provisions of section 306 of the Constitution. The other clear provision relating to cessation of office and removal from office is said to be impeachment in sections 143 and 144 of the Constitution.

Accordingly, the appeal was dismissed.


https://africanlii.org/content/attorney-general-federation-2-ors-v-alhaji-atiku-abubakar-3-ors-sc-31/2007-2007-ngsc-118-20

Umahi should just appeal the discussion and waste their time there, if the both parties are not satisfy with Appeal court ruling, they still have chace to head to supreme court for final judgement.

The first case must have been on for at least 5 years, how long would appeal process take?

Na the real gist be that...

Says who?

Whichever way it goes, my take is that there should be strong legislative backing to guide against these sorts of selfish defections which tend to ridicule our democratic process.

There are similar judgement that came after the atiku case.
We have the court v amaechi and also the court v faleke and the court states clearly that the votes belong to the party not the individual.