CHIMA CENTUS NWEZE, JSC (Delivering the Leading Judgment): My Lords, the issue that calls for the intervention of this Court, in this interlocutory appeal, falls within a very compass. I shall revert to it anon. Before then, however, permit my intimation of its forensic travelogue through the rungs of the two lower Courts, namely, the Governorship Election Tribunal (hereinafter, simply, called the Trial Tribunal) and the Court of Appeal (in this judgment to be, simply, called the lower Court).
The third respondent in this appeal, the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC for short), conducted elections into the office of the Governor of Bayelsa State on December 5 and 6, 2015 and January 9, 2016. While the second respondent herein, All Progressives Congress (A.P.C.), sponsored the candidature of the first respondent, Chief Timipre Marlin Sylva; the appellant, in this appeal, Hon Henry Seriake Dickson, contested the said election under the platform of the Peoples Democratic P…