Davidson Iriekpen
8 November 2007
analysis
Lagos — As many landmark verdicts are being delivered by election petition tribunals across the country, Davidson Iriekpen writes that all eyes are now fixed on the one sitting in Umuahia where the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the April 14 gubernatorial elections in Abia State.
Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, has tendered all that there is to prove his case against the election of Governor Theodore Ahamefule Orji of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA)
If the Abia State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the April 14 gubernatorial elections, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, did not have fate in the judiciary, it is certainly not with the way this third arm of government discharged its functions lately. In one sweep in October, the tribunals in Lokoja and Birnin Kebbi nullified the victories of Governors Ibrahim Idris of Kogi State and Usman Dakingari of Kebbi State. To know that the nullified victories were those of the PDP, is even reassuring to the former Chairman of the Niger Delta Development Commission (NDDC).
In Kogi State for instance, the tribunal on October 10, 2007 nullified the elections of Alhaji Ibrahim Idris on the ground of illegal and wrongful exclusion of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) candidate, Prince Abubakar Audu from the governorship race on the eve of the elections by INEC. Justice Ibrahim Bako did not only nullify the elections, but ordered INEC to conduct a fresh election where Prince Audu must participate.
And on October 20, 2007, Governor Usman Dakingari of Kebbi State became the second governor to have his election nullified by the elections petition tribunal. Both Ibrahim Idris and Usman Dakingari were selected on the platform of the PDP, a party that went to the April general election more or less with a do-or-die manifesto. Justice Aodover Kaka'an like his counterpart in Kogi State , also ordered that a fresh election be conducted by INEC because the governor was not properly nominated as PDP candidate for the April 14 polls. And we are expecting more of these fair judgments from other states as the proceedings continue.
It is not only the governorship elections that have been faulted to have recorded irregularities. With about 1,249 election petitions yet to be resolved, the tribunals have so far cancelled or in some cases nullified over 20 elections since they started sitting.
For Ugochukwu, there is every reason to cheer. Knowing very well that he has he good case, the former NDDC chairman has not left anything to chance. Since May 29 when Theodore Orji mounted the saddle as the governor of state, the road has not been entirely smooth. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared him winner of the April 14 gubernatorial poll right from detention. He was detained at the time over alleged corruption charges and money laundering. He however, got a reprieve before the handover date and was subsequently sworn in as the chief executive of the state. But the political situation in the state is not calm yet. The outcome of the poll is still being contested at the Election Petition Tribunal. He had contested the poll on the platform of the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA). And according to INEC, he polled 265,389 votes representing 55.2 percent of the total votes cast to emerge winner.
Immediately after the election, Ugochukwu filed in his petition, praying the tribunal to nullify the declaration of Orji as winner of the April 14 election is contending amongst other things, that Orji was not qualified to stand for the said election, having been indicted for corruption by an Administrative Panel of Inquiry, set by the Federal Government.
Apart from asking the tribunal to nullify the declaration of Orji as winner of the said election, Ugochukwu contended that the result of the election was not announced or declared by the appropriate returning officer as provided for under the Electoral Act, as the commission's legal officer, rather that the State Resident Electoral Commissioner announced the elections result in clear violation of the provision of the electoral laws.
He further contended that he scored the majority of lawful votes cast in the said election held by INEC on April 14, and ought to have been returned as elected being that he scored at least on-quarter of all the votes cast in each of at least two-third of all the local government areas in Abia state while Orji and Chris Akoma were wrongfully declared and returned as elected as governor and deputy respectively.
To buttress this fact, the petitioner presented three different set of results of the said election in Abia State to the tribunal which it had admitted. The results were tendered by Ugochukwu himself. They include the one issued to him when he got the order of the tribunal to inspect electoral documents used for the polls and dully certified by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), another purportedly released to the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) as the official result of the election by the electoral body and the third from PDP field agents. He tendered them between Wednesday and Friday last week. The documents were tendered after the tribunal had overruled counsel to Orji who raised objections to the admissibility of the results as exhibits.
The drama of objections and over-ruling began when the legal team representing the respondents (Orji and INEC) withdrew their consent that certified results of the election be tendered from the bar. This development warranted Ugochukwu to give evidence in chief, during which he tendered the voluminous documents.
With regard to tendering of the result allegedly in possession of PPA, counsel to Orji, Awah Kalu (SAN), raised objections on the admissibility of the documents. Kalu argued that "the procedure known to law is that the results sought to be tendered when notice has been given is the documents in the possession of the petitioner and not those of the opposing party".
He noted that the set of documents were not in the list of documents filed and relied upon by the petitioners, stressing that nothing in the petitioner's pleadings supported the tendering of the results.
Replying, counsel to the petitioners, Mr. Dickson Denwigwe, holding the brief of Ukala , said the parties were at liberty to rely or refer to documents filed by himself or the adverse party and urged the tribunal to take judicial notice that they were duly filed and certified by the tribunal. He argued that the results were listed in the petitioners pleading, stressing that "we are tendering the documents because INEC refused to issue all statement of results in the April 14 polls to us".
He, therefore, urged the tribunal to overrule the respondents and admit the documents as "the second set of results." Ruling on the objection raised by Kalu on the admissibility of the results, the chairman of the tribunal, Mr. Justice Yusuf Abdullahi, held that they were admissible. Abdullahi held that parties in any petition could rely on the documents and pleadings of the adverse party, adding that the results were filed in the tribunal by the respondents and duly certified. "The objection has no merits and is accordingly overruled," the tribunal chairman said and admitted the alleged falsified results as exhibits.
Earlier, Ugochukwu, who continued his three-day evidence-in- chief in the witness box, told the tribunal that the respondents supplied the purported results upon which the governorship election was declared to him. However, when the petitioner sought to tender them, the respondents objected to the documents being admitted as exhibits, contending that the Ugochukwu did not plead the documents and could not refer to documents filed by them. Also, Ugochukwu, led in evidence by Denwigwe, had tendered governorship candidate results from Ikwuano, Ohafia, Isuikwuato, Isialangwa South and Obingwa local governments.
Attempt by Governor Orji to thwart Ugochukwu's petition once failed in the cause of the trial. The governor had filed an objection, praying the tribunal to strike-out Ugochukwu's petition on the ground that the tribunal has no jurisdiction to hear same and that the petitioner did not state the grounds of the petition in the body of the petition.
Replying to the objection, the petitioner urged the tribunal to dismiss same, arguing that looking at the facts of the matter, which were clearly stated in the petition, the tribunal would see that the issues being complained of have been presented before it.
According to his counsel, Chief Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), there are decided cases of the appellate court to the effect that a petitioner does not need to pour out verbatim, the grounds of the petition as provided in the Electoral Act, as it was sufficient if the facts pleaded were such and on which the grounds of the petition could be gathered.
"The fact that no ground was stated does not invalidate the petition, so far as the facts are stated and it is from the facts so stated that the petition can be determined", he contended. He further stated that "under the Electoral Act, the tribunal pursuant to Section 285 of the 1999 constitution has the jurisdiction to determine election petitions brought on the ground of undue election or undue returns as provided under Section 125 of the Electoral Act."
The first sign of victory for Ugochukwu was when tribunal turned down Orji's request to strike out Ugochukwu's petition. Ruling on the application filed by his counsel, challenging the competence of Ugochukwu's petition, tribunal Chairman, Justice Abdullahi Yusuf dismissed the application and upheld the competence of the consolidated petition of Ugochukwu and the PDP.
In the application dated May 28, 2007, Orji had asked the tribunal to strike out the consolidated petition on the ground that it was premature and baseless since the petitioner/applicants did not attach the results of the April 14, 2007 governorship polls. He also argued that since the petitioner/applicants averred in his petition that the results of the governorship election was not announced or declared by the people authority, it was premature for him to file a petition at the tribunal challenging an election which result was yet to be announced.
But the tribunal in its ruling noted that since the governor had already been sworn-in and assumed office the issue of whether the results were announced or not was not contestable since the product of the result has become an established fact. With this favourable ruling the consolidated petition of Ugochukwu and the PDP has survived the legal onslaught mounted by Orji's legal team to kill prematurely, and can now run the full course at the tribunal.
To further show that Orji was not fit to rule the state, the tribunal last week, admitted a video tape of how the governor sold the state out to his masters. Members of the audience were spell-bound as they watched the governor, his hands and legs bound in chain, taking the oath. The video-clip of Orji's purported pre-inauguration rites was tendered by the petitioner and accepted as exhibit by the tribunal. In the video, the governor appears in his pants. His hands and legs are chained. He kneels down in the grove where the ritual took place. A white cock is waved round his head several times as the priest recites some incantations. The priest, it was learnt, has since been appointed an adviser by Orji.
The video-clip was tendered through a witness, Isaac Olisabueze, who was led in evidence by Ugochukwu's counsel, Chief Udochukwu. Orji's counsel, Chief Udochukwu and his INEC counterpart, Chief Livy Uzonkwu (SAN) objected to the admission of the video-clip as exhibit. They hinged their objection on the ground that Olisabueze was not on the list of witnesses submitted by Ugochukwu. The video show, which lasted for about 30 seconds, contains the images of three people in a shrine with a red cloth spread at the background. There is no accompanying sound. The counsel argued that when suits were consolidated, there should be a formal order by the tribunal to allow for one line of witnesses, adding that there was no time the petitioners showed that they were going to call one line of witnesses.
But Dewigwe argued that since it was a consolidated petition in which evidence called by one party could be available for use in all the suits, even though judgment would be distinct, the essence of practice direction was to give each party advanced notice of witnesses in order not to be taken unawares. He said there was no evidence to show that the defendants were taken unawares.
Ruling on the objection, the tribunal chairman, said the fact that the witness was not listed in the consolidated suit did not amount to a miscarriage of justice. He directed the witness to testify. There was a lengthy argument over the tendering of the video cassette said to contain Orji's initiation. The case was stood down for the tribunal to rule on the issue. After that, there was another argument on whether it should be played in the open court hall or to be taken as having been watched.
On resumption after a brief adjournment, the tribunal ruled that it should be shown in the open court as other exhibits were also read as the counsel wished. During the cross-examination, Olisabueze, the secretary of the Okija shrine, said that the video recording was done by Godwin Duru, former chairman of Aba South Local Government Area, during the tenure of Kalu. He admitted that he was not in the video.
In statement recently signed by one Chris Nwokocha for the Campaign for Abia Re-birth (CARE), the campaign organisation that under-took Ugochukwu's electioneering campaigns, he said there was an on-going sinister plan by some PPA stalwarts and major contractors to the state government to disrupt and ensure that the state tribunal does not complete its assignment in determining who actually won the governorship election in the state.
According to the statement, the plan was hatched in the Ikeja area of Lagos recently in a meeting attended by some PPA stalwarts, government functionaries and the major contractors. "The major plank of the plan is to raise about N500 million to be used in inducing the honourable members of the tribunal to deliver judgment in favour of Chief T.A. Orji. They also plan to penetrate the tribunal through its secretariat staff if efforts to reach the judges directly fail.
"We have it on good authority that on their cards are also plans to eliminate the People Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship candidate in the April 14 Gubernatorial elections, Chief Onyema Ugochukwu, and his running mate, Chief Chinwe Nwanganga, should all other plans to influence or stop the tribunal from proceeding with hearing of the petition by Ugochukwu challenging the declaration of Chief T.A. Orji as governor fail.
He warned that if PPA and Orji are sure that their purported victory is real, they should desist from clandestine motives that would not only threaten the peace of Abia State but truncate democracy in the country. "The government of Abia State and its agents should be held responsible for any of insecurity and if any harm comes to the PDP flag bearers".
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