APC Candidate Timipre Sylva Disqualified from Bayelsa 2023 Election

Timipre Sylva has been disqualified from contesting the Bayelsa 2023 Election.

Newsone reports that a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital, has disqualified the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Timipre Sylva, from contesting the November 11 election in Bayelsa State.

This online news platform understands that the ruling disqualifying Timipre Sylva from contesting the Bayelsa 2023 Governorship Election was delivered on Monday, October 10, 2023, by Justice Donatus Okorowo.

Okorowo ruled that Sylva, having been sworn in twice and ruled for five years as governor of the state, would breach the 1999 constitution as amended if allowed to contest again.

Newsone Nigeria reports that the presiding judge stated that Sylva was not qualified to run in the forthcoming November poll because he would have spent more than eight years in office as governor of the state if he wins and is sworn in.

While citing the case of Marwa vs Nyako at the Supreme Court, Justice Okorowo maintained that the drafters of the country’s constitution stated that nobody should be voted for as governor more than two times and that the parties to the suit agreed that Sylva was voted into office two times.

Justice Okorowo said the Supreme Court has also ruled in the case of Marwa vs Nyako that nobody can expand the constitution or its scope, adding that if Sylva was allowed to contest the next election, it meant a person could contest as many times as he wanted.