The perfect invention within the electoral administration course of is the supply to hunt redress by the instrumentality of regulation. The place a celebration to an election is dissatisfied with the procedures and final result, he can strategy an election petitions tribunal. Equally, there isn’t any higher invention by man to ensure honest trial just like the hierarchical order of courts. In different phrases, if a litigant feels denied of honest listening to, he has each proper of enchantment as much as the extent the structure permits.
The November 16, 2019, governorship election in Kogi state was extra of a straight combat between Alhaji Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Musa Atayi Wada of the Peoples Democratic Celebration (PDP). The outcomes of the election confirmed that Bello of the APC emerged winner having polled 406, 222 votes to defeat the PDP candidate, Wada, who polled 189, 704 votes, a margin by no means witnessed within the annals of political victories within the state.
The unity he constructed he constructed for 4 years spoke on the day of his election because the Governor gained in LGAs throughout the three Senatorial Districts, together with the Senatorial District of his foremost challenger, Engr Musa Atayi Wada , who’s at the moment embroiled within the legality and validity of the ticket he used to enter into the governorship contest ring. Dissatisfied with the result of the election, the PDP and its candidate explored a authorized possibility by difficult the victory of Governor Bello on the governorship election petitions tribunal which sat in Abuja.
On Might 23, 2020, the tribunal affirmed the declaration and return of Bello by the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee (INEC) because the validly elected Governor of Kogi state within the November 16 2019 governorship election. The judgement didn’t come as a shock to the individuals of the state who knew they voted for his or her governor. Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Kashim Kaigama, who delivered the sound majority judgement with one other member of the three-member panel, Justice Baraka Wali, threw out the petitions filed by Wada and the PDP on December 7, 2019 on the bottom that the petitioners failed woefully to show the grounds of their petition. They awarded a value of N500,000 towards the petitioners in favour of the respondents.
However in his dissenting judgment, Justice Ohimai Ovbiagele upheld the petitioners’ case by nullifying the leads to seven out of the 21 native authorities areas within the state. He ordered INEC to withdraw the certificates of return issued to Governor Bello, simply as he requested the fee to conduct a contemporary election in seven LGAs inside three months.
Within the petitions earlier than the tribunal, they alleged that Governor Bello was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes solid on the stated governorship election in Kogi state. “That the election was invalid by cause of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended); that the election was invalid by causes of corrupt practices with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 (As Amended)’’. The petitions comprise a number of allegations of corrupt practices. In help of their allegations, the petitioners lodged a number of truckloads of documentary proof. They nevertheless referred to as 32 witnesses, together with two INEC employees subpoenaed to supply paperwork and to testify, witnesses that alleged over voting in numerous polling models, 17 witnesses that alleged cancellation of outcomes and two professional witnesses.
Curiously, nearly all of the witness statements on oath adopted earlier than the tribunal in proof of the above allegations of corrupt practices have been drafted in a repetitive refrain, thereby seeming to imitate themselves. Reality will at all times shine higher when challenged. Nevertheless, Governor Yahaya Bello had by his lawyer, J.B. Daudu (SAN), filed a reply on January 7, 2020 denying all allegations of electoral malpractices made within the petition. The governor additionally acknowledged that opposite to the petitioners’ allegations, the stated election was performed in substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) and that he was in consequence, duly elected by a majority of lawful votes solid thereat. Consequently, he urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial prices.
In his last written handle, Governor Bello’s lawyer famous that Wada’s petition is replete with complaints of over voting. The previous Nigeria Bar Affiliation president drew the eye of the tribunal to the irrefutable place of the regulation which states that the burden or onus is on the petitioners to show their petition. He contended that the petitioners merely dumped the majority of their documentary proof on the Tribunal with out relating them to the averments of their petition. Nevertheless, each the bulk resolution and dissenting judgement of the tribunal delivered on Might 23, 2020 have been premised on the “Skilled Witnesses” proof of PDW19 contained in a report marked Exhibit18. In all intent and functions, courts and tribunals don’t adjudicate on issues based mostly on rumour and emotion. The discovered males of the bench are totally steeped within the knitty gritty of regulation to be swayed by sheer feelings and lies. Justices of the very best court docket within the land, Supreme Courtroom, have held severally {that a} court docket of regulation just isn’t a Father Christmas that ought to be giving frivolous reliefs searched for.
PDP and Wada have since proceeded on enchantment. Nevertheless, specialists are of the view that his enchantment will nonetheless fall like a pack of playing cards as a result of the grounds of the petition are faulty within the first occasion and don’t stand thorough scrutiny, even of a deu Ken choose. First, the election of which he’s contesting the lead to court docket was adjudged free, honest and credible by each home and worldwide observers. Is Wada claiming that the opinions of hundreds of observers who gave the election move mark are improper and solely him is correct? However in regulation, regardless of how faulty a petition is, it should be given its due consideration. Nice respect for the discovered panel member who gave the dissenting judgement nullifying Bello’s victory and ordering INEC to withdraw his certificates of return, however going by the submission of his discovered colleagues within the panel who affirmed the election, he appeared to have stood justice on its head by innocently shopping for into the gimmicks of the petitioners and their witnesses.
As their lordships on the appellate court docket get set to resolve the matter, it’s believed that they’d heed the clarion name of the apex court docket justices who haven’t minced phrases in insisting that always the court docket ought to rise and do justice in a approach that substantial justice just isn’t sacrificed on the altar of technicalities.
Abiodun writes in from Abuja
Associated
Supply: www.blueprint.ng
