Nigeria: Will the Court Ever Void a Presidential Election in Nigeria? - AllAfrica.com

Jiti OgunyeLagos

By the unprecedented unrecorded telecast of the bringing by the Presidential Election Request Tribunal, of the judgement in the amalgamate requests of General Muhammadu Buhari and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, respectively of the ANPP and AC, against the election of President Umar Genus Musa Yar' Adua, on Tuesday 26th of February 2008, and the extended coverage of the judgement in the black and white media, the general populace have been able to grip the inside information of the judgment.

However, from a lawsuit reappraisal angle, it may be too early to make a thorough "finding by finding, and retention by holding" analysis of the judgment. This is because the judgement (both the Pb and concurring) is not yet available in the law studies for a careful and punctilious digestion. All the same, given what is known of the judgment, from the broadcast and black and white mass media report, it is safe to make its concise review, pending a more than luxuriant reappraisal when the judgement is published in the law reports.

Overall, it is our considered position that the judgement of the Court of Appeal, acting as the Tribunal, as learned as it certainly is, and as obvious as the industry that went into its readying is, is an unfortunate reversal of the modest advancement that have been recorded in recent clip in election request lawsuits under Nigerian law.

The judgement is dogmatically legalistic. It merely followed in the footfalls of the Awolowo volt Shagari, Falae volt Obasanjo and Buhari volt Obasanjo precedents, without heeding the age long adjudicative warning that in the application of judicial lawsuits in point and rules of law, facts of cases, which are distinguishable, should not be treated as one and the same. In Buhari volt Obasanjo( 2005), 13 NWLR. Pt. 941, 1 at Pp 308-309, parities G-C; 311,and paras. D-E, the Supreme Court had held that "an order of cancellation or nullification of the Presidential election should not be made by a tribunal or court without clear, positive believable and overpowering grounds led to the consequence that the full election was totally flawed nationwide; and that the behavior of the election was in breach of major and very cardinal commissariat of the Electoral Act. In the blink of an eye case, although the plaintiffs in error sought the scene aside of the full election on the evidence inter alia of violence, bullying and breach as of the Electoral Act, they failed to demo who was responsible for the force and intimidation, or how the alleged breach as of the Electoral Act affected the full consequence of the election, including the result accredited to the 1st Appellant"

The Tribunal, in our view, did no more than than than to throw fast to that decision, even when the fortune were different, and the law-breaking of fraud in the contested 2007 election was more grievously blatant. The judgement unsympathetically denies the painful world of our corporate experience during the behavior of the April 14, 2007 Presidential Election. Our intuition is that the Court took a decision, in line with existing precedents, not to invalidate the consequence of the Presidential Election; and having taken that decision, it made certain that the respective pieces of grounds of corrupt patterns in the election and that of non-compliance with the commissariat of the Electoral Act, 2006, that were led at the trial of the petitions, were roundly rejected or dismissed as deficient to upturn the consequence of the election. If we were right in our suspicion, then the Tribunal, with profound regard to their Lordships, did not make right by the Nigerian people.

If, in the thought of the Tribunal, it is, contextually, unwise, unrealistic and inconvenient to invalidate the consequence of the election, the Court should have got got said so in apparent language, after accepting, as proved, believable and unimpeachable evidence that were led at the trial to demo that the election was marred by fraud and irregularities.

The Court could have rationalized a refusal to invalidate the consequence on the grounds of the paramount necessity to exert judicial powerfulnesses judiciously, of the bounding duty of the bench to stabilise the polity, and of the important function of the bench in the saving of law and order, which a nullification of the consequence of the election might undermine.

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The Court could have got reasoned that upturning the consequence of the election might jeopardize national security and endanger democratic administration itself. The Court could even have got added that it had no case in point to follow, either in Federal Republic Of Nigeria or in the remainder of the Commonwealth, in voiding the all of import consequence of the presidential election; and that it was not prepared to make one. If the Court had taken this line of approach, it would have got been subjected to rough unfavorable judgment for displaying a deficiency of courage, when it ought to distribute justness without fearfulness or favour, affectionateness or sick will.

However, in our low opinion, it is better for a bench to be accused of exhibiting rational and circumspective timidness in dealing with a hyper-sensitive matter of a presidential election revocation in a newcomer democracy, such as as ours, than for it to be accused of hypocrisy.

There is a general agreement of local and international sentiments that the April 2007 Elections in Federal Republic Of Federal Republic Of Nigeria were the worst conducted elections since Nigeria returned to civil regulation in 1999. Local and foreign election monitoring devices testified to this fact in their vituperative reports. The behavior of the elections was said not to be in consonant rhyme with regional standards, allow alone international standards. The mass media reflected this fact.

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Nigeria: AC Says Presidential Election Petition Will Be Decided By ... - AllAfrica.com

Olumide Bajulaiye

The Action United States Congress (AC) have said it have always known that the request filed by its presidential candidate, former Frailty President Atiku Abubakar, against the 21 April 2007 election of President Umaru Yar'Adua volition be determined conclusively by the Supreme Court.

Reacting to Tuesday's judgment of the Presidential Election Request Court that validated President Yar'Adua's election, the political party expressed daze and discouragement that given the preponderance of grounds the election panel could still travel ahead to legitimise electoral fraud and gangsterism by validating Yar'adua election.

However, the AC, in a statement issued by its National Promotion Secretary, Alhaji Lai Mohammed, said its assurance in the bench stays unshaken despite the judgement.

"We in the actinium have got got got always shown enormous regard for the bench because of its forthrightness, equity and fearlessness.

"Today's judgment have not changed that, even though we would have wished that the court would govern otherwise, considering the preponderance of solid grounds screening that what was passed on for election on April 21 was nil but a charade, a make-belief and a jeer of election process," the political party said.

AC however expressed concern at studies by a subdivision of the mass media that ahead of the ruling, Bolaji Adebiyi, an adjutant of President Yar'Adua, had sent e-mails to some Nigerian Editors advising them on who to interview after the finding of fact must have been announced.

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"If this is true, it makes not augur well for the unity of the judiciary, since it bespeaks the judgment may have got been leaked to the presidential term ahead of time. We name on the National Judicial Committee to look into this," it said.

The political political party called on its protagonists to stay unagitated in the wake of the ruling, saying it was confident that the Supreme Court will decide the disputatious issues involved once and for all, and in good clip too.

"We give thanks our teeming protagonists across the state for continuing to rest assurance in the leading of our great party to make what is right, even in the human face of provocative election rigging and force by those set on making a jeer of our democracy.

Nigeria: Presidential Tribunal Ends Sitting - AllAfrica.com

Sunday Ejike Benjamin

The Presidential Election Request Court yesterday ended sitting and reserved judgment for a future day of the month in a lawsuit instituted by two resistance political parties asking the tribunal to invalidate President Umaru Genus Musa Yar'adua's election.

The Presidential Candidates of the All Federal Republic Of Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), General Muhammadu Buhari (rtd) and the Action United States Congress (AC), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar take a firm stand the April election was flawed and must be cancelled.

The court yesterday turned down an application by Atiku to tender a written written written written document titled, "Independent National Electoral Commission: The Official Report On the 2007 General Election", as an exhibit in his petition.

The actinium campaigner had applied to tender the document to authenticate his claim that the INEC chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu's, answer to interrogatories on the awarding of contract for the production of voters' card contradicted his statement in the report.

The court upheld the expostulation of President Yar'adua, saying the application was out of clip and that if the suppliant knew it was critical to his lawsuit he would have got got got tendered it earlier.

Atiku's Pb counsel, Prof. Aelfred Babatunde Kasumu (SAN), had complained that Iwu's answers, to the interrogatories served on him contradicted his business relationship in the said study and accused him of perjury.

Arguing in favor of his application to tender Iwu's study on the election before the tribunal, Kasumu said the study is a public document that incorporates facts on the behavior of the election and is certified by the INEC boss.

Yar'adua's counsel, Head Wole Olanipekun (SAN), objected to the application on respective grounds, including that it was neither pleaded nor was any witnesser statement attached to the petition.

Olanipekun, who objected to Atiku's application to tender the study before the tribunal, described the move as an maltreatment of the procedures of the court, arguing that Atiku's application is a misdemeanor of the Practice Directive of the tribunal, saying that the former frailty president ought to have tendered the document along with his petition.

According him, "we are not at the computer address stage; counsels' turns to have been filed and exchanged, accepting anything at this phase will be contrary to the Practice Directive. There is no affidavit evidence to demo any circumstance to justify admissibility of Atiku's written written document at this phase of the matter".

INEC's advocate Head Kanu Agabi (SAN) said Atiku's application is uncalled for and lacked footing as it is coming long after the termination of the clip for tendering of the document.

The presiding judge, Justice Jesse James Ogebe, in his opinion dismissed the application on the grounds that he (Kasumu) was out of clip and that if he had known that the study supported his lawsuit he ought to have got tendered it earlier.

Buhari and Atiku are contesting that the April 21, 2007 presidential election was not conducted in significant conformity with the Electoral Act 2006.

In his entry on the request filed by Buhari, INEC's counsel, Head Kanu Agabi (SAN), said the request could not stand up up because his party, the ANPP and his running-mate, Head Ume Eze-oke had withdrawn from the petition.

He said there is no manner they would contend the consequences of the election when they did not take part in the it and argued that there were 36 states in the state and the Federal Soldier Capital District but that the suppliant lone challenged the consequences of only four states.

Agabi said, "Even if election were to be cancelled in these states, the election would still be able to stand. Apart from the fact that abnormalities have got got not been proved, they have not been attributed to the 5th and 6th respondent (INEC and Professor Maurice Iwu). The abnormalities must be proved. If they are not proved, they amount to nothing.

"The law take a firm stands on significant conformity not entire or perfect compliance. The law states that if the elections are bad, it must be obvious. If you (the petitioner) have got to tender 30,000 documents, it intends that the election was well documented.

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"A lawsuit is only said to be good if it is well presented. There is no lawsuit before this tribunal, the suppliant have not presented his lawsuit well. I urge on this tribunal to disregard this petition". Agabi stated.

In his argument, Olanipekun said that the witnessers in the request are mainly from International Maritime Organization State, saying that the witnessers did not give a graphic business relationship of what happened in other states.

"An election of this magnitude can't be voided on the grounds of hear-say. No adult male is omnipotent. They are not God. They did not utilize any periscope to cognize what happened in other parts of the country", he said.

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