Ilorin/Ekiti — The Court of Appeal sitting in Ilorin, the Kwara State capital, yesterday nullified the election of Senator Adefemi Kila of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the Senator representing Ekiti Central Senatorial district in the upper chamber of the National Assembly

In his place, the Appellate Court declared the Action Congress (AC) candidate in the April 14, 2007 election for the senatorial district, Mr. Bode Ola, the duly elected Senator having secured the highest number of votes cast in the poll.

Kila had last year been confirmed winner of the senatorial poll by the Justice Usman Bukar Buala-led State Election Petitions Tribunal which sat in Ado-Ekiti, the Ekiti State capital.

Dissatisfied with the ruling at the lower tribunal, Ola headed for the Court of Appeal to challenge the judgment of the election tribunal.

Delivering judgment on the matter in Ilorin, Justice Sotonye Denton-West, said the respondent (Kila) after a deduction of invalid votes from the initial votes credited to him by the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), has a total of 19,653 votes as against 38,563 credited to the appellant (Ola) as lawful votes.

The appellant had at the lower tribunal led an evidence in which the respondent was alleged to have inflated the votes credited to him by about 19,000.

The physical counting of the ballot papers had revealed that about 19,000 of the ballot papers had the same serial number.

According to the court, since the respondent could not challenge the evidence at the lower tribunal it would be difficult for the appellate court to grant a specific prayer on it.

The lower Tribunal had cited technicality for not considering the ground of the appellant at that level of adjudication.

The Apeallate judge however averred that, "the era of technicality was over", adding that "since the evidence was not challenged at the lower tribunal it is an acceptance that the evidence was not controverted."

Justice Denton-West declared that, "after subtracting the valid votes from the invalid ones, the appellant has a majority lawful votes. And based on these majority of lawful votes, the appellant (Ola) is so declared as the winner of the election."

In a swift reaction to the ruling yesterday, the AC described the judgment as a sweet reward for perseverance and doggedness.

In a statement issued by its National Publicity Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, the party commended the AC candidate as well as the party for their strong belief in the case as well as in the judiciary, even when it seemed that the judicial process was dragging on forever.

It also hailed the judiciary for exposing the outcome of the 2007 senatorial election in the state, and indeed that of other elections, as nothing but a sheer robbery.

The AC and the PDP in Ekiti State however viewed the judgment differently.

While the AC Chairman in the state, Chief Jide Awe, described it as a confirmation of the stand of the party that the 2007 April polls were allegedly rigged by INEC in favour of the PDP, the PDP said the judgment of the Appeal Court came to it as a surprise because there was no cause for such a verdict when in actual fact the AC supporters did not even vote during the election due to the fear of the popularity of the PDP in the state.