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.
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