Appeal Court sacks APC’s Mama Taraba

The Court of Appeal In Abuja has cancelled the purported victory handed Aisha Alhassan, by an election tribunal, as the governor of Taraba State.

Mrs. Alhassan, the candidate of the All Peoples Congress, was declared winner on November 7.

In doing so, the Taraba State Governorship Election Tribunal nullified the election of Darius Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party.

But in its ruling Thursday, the Court of Appeal which reviewed Mr. Ishaku’s appeal, described as “unattainable” a petition by the APC seeking to disqualify Mr. Ishaku as the PDP candidate in the gubernatorial election of April 11.
In a unanimous ruling, a five-man panel led by Justice Abdul Aboki said that the Election Tribunal was wrong in giving victory to Mrs. Alhassan, while nullifying the election of Mr. Ishaku.

The judges said the constitution clearly states that unless a candidate has been indicted by a court of law, or is known to have a criminal record, or has certain degree of health condition, among others, such a person cannot be determined by a tribunal as not being qualified as a candidate.

Mr. Aboki said the failure of a party to conduct a conclusive primaries – the grounds the tribunal cited for disqualifying Mr. Ishaku – was clearly a pre-election matter which the tribunal has no jurisdiction on.

Mr. Aboki said the important question about Section 85 of the Electoral Act was whether the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, which the section was made for, was complaining about the candidature of Mr. Ishaku.

“If INEC does not see any reason to complain, can the first and second respondent be seen complaining loudly?” Mr. Aboki questioned.

“I have found in this case that the first and second respondent have no right to challenge the emergence of the PDP governorship candidate since none of them is a member of the PDP,” said Mr. Aboki.

Mr. Aboki also said that the election tribunal drew wrong conclusions from the evidences provided by the witnesses.

Mr. Aboki said the constitution does not provide for the type of judgement that gave victory to Mrs. Alhassan.

He said the constitution states that if a person is considered unqualified for an election, the election should be declared null and void.

In the event that the election is considered to have been affected by irregularities, the judge said the court shall not declare the person with the second highest votes winner, but can only demand a rerun of elections.

“It is therefore a gross misdirection in law on the part of the trial tribunal to declare the first petitioner as the winner of the election of April 2015 for emerging with the second highest votes”.

“The decision of the tribunal is hereby set aside,” said Mr. Aboki.

He upheld the decision of INEC to return Mr. Ishaku as the duly elected governor of the state.

The APC had argued that Mr. Ishaku could not have been qualified for the election since he allegedly did not partake in any primaries by his party.

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Court sacks Ikpeazu,Installs Alex Otti as Abia State governor

The Court of Appeal, sitting in Owerri, has removed Okezie Ikpeazu of the Peoples Democratic Party as governor of Abia State.

The court also declared Alex Otti of the All Progressives Grand Alliance  the winner of the April 11 and April 25 supplementary elections in the state.

Delivering judgment in an appeal filed by Mr. Otti, the five-member panel, headed by Justice Oyebisi Omoleye, said the APGA candidate scored 164, 444 valid votes to defeat Mr. Ikpeazu who scored 114, 444 votes.

The court declared that Mr. Otti was the winner of the April 11 and April 25 supplementary elections in Abia.

Justice Omoleye said the cancellation of the elections held in three LGAs of Obingwa, Osisioma Ngwa and Isiala Ngwa by the returning officers after the results were uploaded to INEC was wrong.

“In the Electoral Act, the Returning Officer has the right to only declare results of elections and not to cancel elections.

“This panel discovered that the earlier results uploaded to INEC headquarters correspond with the correct valid registered voters in the three LGAs, while that awarded to the respondent shows over voting and therefore null and void.’’

Justice Omoleye had while reviewing preliminary objections and issues raised by both parties, struck out the preliminary objections by Mr. Ikpeazu’s counsel to the effect that the appeal lacked merit.

The court also turned down the objection raised by the PDP that the members of the panel were wrongfully constituted and affirmed the arguments of Mr. Otti’s counsel.

The appellate court maintained that the lower tribunal erred by not handling all the issues raised before it on their merit.

“It was wrong for the court below to insist that because the appellant failed to appear in person, his matter will not be given due attention.

“For not appearing in person, the first appellant did not abandon his case,” she said.

The court insisted that there was no need to call for re-run because the results of the April 11 and 25 polls clearly present Mr. Otti as the genuine winner of the exercise.

The court therefore directed INEC to issue Certificate of Return to Mr. Otti and swear him in as winner of the Abia Governorship election.

In his reaction to the judgment, Oracle Nwali, a lawyer in Mr. Otti’s legal team, described the victory as “an end of the year gift to APGA”, saying Mr. Otti would not disappoint Abia people.

On his part, Charles Esonu, the PDP secretary in Abia, said the party and its candidate would study the judgment and decide on the next line of action.

Mr. Otti had proceeded to the Court of Appeal after the Abia tribunal gave its judgment on November 3, saying the PDP validly won the election.

In that 85-minute judgment, delivered by its Chairman, Usman Bwala, the tribunal said  the petitioners – Mr. Otti and APGA – failed to prove their claim to have won the election ‘’beyond doubt”.

Mr. Bwala said the petitioners had, on one hand urged the court to nullify the election on grounds that it was marred by irregularities and massive fraud and on the other hand, sought that they should be declared winners of the same election.

He said the petitioners reckoned with the card reader as a means of accreditation during the election of April 11 but failed to agree with use of voter’s register.

The tribunal further refused to grant the petitioners’ request to uphold the cancellation of the results of the election in Obingwa, Osisioma and Isiala-Ngwa North Local Government Areas of the state.

Mr. Bwala said the State Returning Officer, Benjamin Ozumba, was not allowed under the law, to cancel the said results in the first place, hence the subsequent reversal by him had no effect.

He said the onus lay heavily on the petitioners to prove beyond doubt that they won the election as they claimed in their petition.

The tribunal chairman, therefore, dismissed the petition because of the failure of the petitioners to convince the tribunal beyond doubt that they won the election.

Mr. Otti had urged the tribunal to annul the declaration of Mr. Ikpeazu as governor, saying the election was marred by irregularities and substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act.

He, however, urged the tribunal to declare him (Otti) the winner on account of the lawful votes cast during the election.

He also asked the tribunal to uphold Mr. Ozumba’s cancellation of the results for Obingwa, Osisioma and Isiala-Ngwa North LGAs.

He said that Ozumba, having cancelled the results, did not have the power to cancel the result and reverse himself, adding that only the tribunal had the power to reverse the cancellation.

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