Bello...yesterday
The Appeal Tribunal in the Kogi governorship election dispute yesterday upheld the return of Governor Yahaya Bello as winner of last year’s election in the state
The five-man appeal tribunal, which sat at the Court of Appeal, Abuja, dismissed three of the appeals filed in relation to the Kogi governorship electoral dispute and struck out the one filed by the Labour Party.
The appellate tribunal upheld the judgments of the trial tribunal in relation to the four petitions considered in relation to the Kogi governorship dispute.
The appeals dismissed were those by James Faleke, ex-Kogi Governor, Idris Wada and African Democratic Congress (ADC).
In the appeal by Faleke (who was the running mate of the late Abubakar Audu), the court held among others, that the appellant failed to lead sufficient evidence to substantiate his allegation that Bello was not qualified for the election.
Justice Jumai Hannatu Sankey, who read the lead judgment, resolved all six issues determined against the appellant.
On Faleke’s argument that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) decision to declare Bello winner of the election was without consideration of Section 181(1) of the Constitution, the court held that it could be said that the joint ticket of the applicant and that of the late Audu met the requirement of Section 179 (2) of the Constitution.
It held that INEC was right to have relied on its Manual for its officials in not declaring the Audu/Faleke joint ticket winner of the election since the manual made pursuant to Section 160 of the Constitution, had statutory flavour, containing guidelines “meant to be obeyed and not disobeyed, to be respected and not disregarded.”
The court also held that the appellant could not have been made the candidate of the party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) having not participated in the party’s primary election, and because there is no provision for independent candidate in the Constitution.
On whether the appellant had the locus standi to have challenged the outcome of the election, the court held that being a party to the Audu/Faleke joint ticket, he possessed the right to challenge the process of the election.
On issues relating to the legitimacy or otherwise of the substitution of Audu with Bello and whether the issue fell within the jurisdiction of the election tribunal, the court held that issues relating to nomination, sponsorship and substitution of candidates fell within the realms of pre-election matters.
“The law is well settled that the nomination and sponsorship of candidates is outside the jurisdiction of the tribunal established pursuant to Section 285 (2) of the Constitution. That be pre-election matter cannot be determined by the electoral tribunal established pursuant to that provision.
“Such matters are only preserved exclusively for the regular High Courts. The tribunal was therefore right in coming to the conclusion that it has no jurisdiction to entertain the appellant’s grievance.
“The petition was therefore not properly situated and the petition was therefore rendered incompetent,” the court said.
On whether the petition was statute barred, the court held that since the cause of action arose after December 6, 2015, when INEC declared the result of the election, Faleke’s petition could not have been said to be staute barred.
On the issue of cause of action, the court said the trial tribunal was right in holding that the petition did not disclose any cause of action as the pleadings of the appellant were substantially based on pre-election matters.
The court also upheld the finding by the tribunal that Faleke’s petition was faulty because he failed to include the APC as a party. It added that since the meat of the petition revolved around the substitution of a candidate and the declaration of a candidate winner, the party was a necessary party.
The court agreed with the finding of the lower tribunal that the failure to join the party, the APC, was fatal to the appellant’s case.
“In all therefore, even though the appellant is found to possess the requisite locus standi, to initiate the petition before the tribunal in order to ventilate his conceived grievances, I must say, with all due respect, that the locus standi is not enough and it is incapable of conferring on him the right to pursue and prosecute these pre-election claims before the tribunal,” Justice Shankey said in resolving the fourth issue.
The court said since the ground for the challenge of the election was the alleged non-qualification of the 2nd respondent (Bello), the appellant was expected that facts should have been pleaded in line with Sections 177 and 182 of the Constitution to substantiate such claims.
It said there was no averment in the petition, stating that the 2nd respondent was not qualified by virtue of the fact that he did not meet the conditions for qualification set out in Section 177 of the Constitution or that he was not qualified by reasons that he fell into grounds of disqualification set out in Section 182 of the Constitution.
“By operation of the law and the provisions of sections 132 and 133 of the Evidence Act 2011, the onus is on the petitioner to prove his assertions with credible evidence.
“Further to this, the appellant did not prove by credible evidence that the 2nd respondent was not qualified or was disqualified from contesting the election by virtue of Section 177 of the Constitution.
“In view of this abysmal failure on the part of the appellant, and having considered the totality of the evidence, both oral and documentary, presented by the appellant, as contained in the printed record, I have to agree with the respondents that iota of evidence was adduced to establish the allegation in the petiton as it relates to the complaint of the non-qualification of the 2nd respondent,” the court said.
The court further held that Faleke, who did not participate in the primary of the party, cannot question the decision of his party to field Bello in the place of Audu.
“It is settled law, under the Constitution and the Electoral Act, that no one can contest election without first, being a member of a duly registered political party, and secondly, without being sponsored by a political party as candiadte in the election.
“In the instant case, although the appellant is a member of the APC, he was not sponsored by the party as a candidate for the election in question,” the court said.
On the appellant’s claim that Bello did not register and vote in the election, the tribunal held aside that the appellant failed to lead any evidence to support this claim.
The court upheld the judgment of the election tribunal and dismissed the appeal by Faleke.
In the appeal by Wada, the court, in a split decision of four to one, held that Bello was validly substituted for the late Abubakar Audu, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), who died before the conclusion of the election.
As against Wada’s argument that Bello was not qualified for the election, having not allegedly participated in all stages of the election, the court held that Bello participated in all the stages “by virtue of the participation of his party and accrued interest.”
Justice Mojeed Owoade, who read the lead judgment, said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was right to have merged the votes scored by Audu (before he died) and that of Bello (in the supplementary election) to return the APC’s candidate as winner.
The court, which resolved all six issues determined against the appellant, held that Wada failed to prove his allegation that the election was held in violation of the Constitution and Electoral Act.
Justice Ita George Mbaba, in a dissenting judgment, held that Bello did not participate in all stages of the election as required under Section 141 of the Electoral Act, and ought not to have been retirned as the winner of the election.
The court also dismissed the Appeal by the Labour Party challenging the decision of the electoral tribunal and upheld the objection filed against it by the respondents.
In the case of the appeal by the ADC, the court dismissed it for being incompetent.
No comments:
Post a Comment