seventy (70) days before the scheduled date for voting, (i.e. 11 October 2015),
on the fateful day of 1 August 2015. The Court was therefore seized with the
case on grounds of urgency. In the present circumstances of the case, if the
Court were to wait for the applications of candidature to be possibly rejected
before acting, if it had to wait for the exhaustion of the effects of any
transgression before stating the law, its jurisdiction in a context of urgency
would have no sense, because the electoral rights of the presumed victims for
participating in the electoral race would inexorably be breached”.
53.
Also in USL case (supra) the Court held that “In the instant case, the action
filed by Plaintiff/Applicant aims to prevent a violation that it is afraid of its
realization. Indeed, the parties at cause agree that as at the time of filing the
present Application, the law on sponsorship was not yet applied, and that no
candidature was either presented or rejected, pursuant to that law”.
54.
Flowing from the foregoing analysis, it is incumbent upon the Applicants to
establish the existence of any potential or imminent breach of the right to
freedom of expression and opinion based on a functional or operative law of
the Respondent to ground their case. This is in pursuant to the established
principle of proof as held in the case of PETROSTAR (NIGERIA) LIMITED
v. BLACKBERRY NIGERIA LIMITED & ANOR, (2011) CCJELR 99, para.
33 where the Court held that “After all, it is a cardinal principle of law that
he who alleges must prove”.
55.
One of the locus classicus on the issue of onus of proof in the jurisprudence
of this Court is the case of FEMI FALANA & ANOR v. THE REPUBLIC OF
BENIN & 2 ORS (2012) CCJELR 1 in which the Court held that;
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