On A Rescue Mission

The Appeal Court verdict installing Adams Oshiomhole as Governor of Edo State gives  hope to other aggrieved candidates and by extension the survival of democracy in Nigeria

By Ademola Adegbamigbe

The joy of Adams Oshiomhole’s Appeal Court victory through which he was declared the Governor of Edo State two weeks ago reverberated beyond the state. In a way, it was akin to the epochal victory of Barack Obama in the United States.  Beyond the spirit of the occasion, however, analysts are of the view that all injured parties with similar cases now depend on the Appeal Court President, Justice Umar Faruk Abdullahi, who chaired the panel and read the judgment, to get justice. There are such cases in Delta, Osun, Ekiti, Ondo, Abia, Oyo, Ogun and other states. With that, the hope is that the survival of democracy in the country will be assured.

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On 10 November 2008, the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin confirmed Oshiomhole,  Action Congress, AC, candidate in the 2007 governorship election, as the duly elected governor of Edo State. Abdullahi presided over the five-member panel which ruled on the suit filed by Prof. Oserheimen Osunbor of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

Osunbor was the sitting governor of the state. Abdullahi declared Oshiomhole governor because he polled the highest number of votes in the election, and ordered Osunbor to vacate the Government House immediately.

That was a dramatic end to the event that started in March, when Osunbor appealed the verdict of the First Edo State Election Petitions Tribunal, which declared Oshiomhole winner of the governorship election in the state. Osunbor premised his appeal on 84 grounds, based on 11 issues.

One of these was that the state Tribunal erred by annulling election results in some local councils and held that since votes were cancelled, the Tribunal was wrong in using that to arrive at its judgment. Osunbor, therefore, asked the Appeal Tribunal to upturn the lower tribunal’s judgment. However, Abdullahi explained that the former governor was wrong to believe that the tribunal annulled the said election. Rather, the Appeal Tribunal, according to him, deducted all recorded invalid ballot papers for both parties in 12 local government areas of the state and based its verdict on the number of valid ones. He added that the Tribunal was right in ordering a recount of ballot papers since that did not run foul of any constitutional provision.

Osunbor also asked the Appeal Tribunal to consider whether or not the decision of the tribunal conformed to constitutional prescription. But the Appeal Court countered that the lower court was right.

Again, Osunbor argued that Oshiomhole’s petition was not signed and so should have been discarded. But the panel headed by Abdullahi resolved not to sacrifice substantive matters for  technicalities. Abdullahi came down hard on the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. “As an impartial arbiter, INEC had no reason to file objections and motions in an attempt to vindicate the result it declared,” Abdullahi declared.

In the end, Osunbor, a lawyer who claims to be a believer in the rule of law, conceded defeat and congratulated Oshiomhole. Given the landmark judgment, the challenge before Abdullahi now, in the view of Nigerians, is to see that in states where electoral tribunals gave curious verdicts, pending cases are re-examined dispassionately and all injured parties are given justice. This is because, the controversial judgments of lower electoral tribunals have shaken the confidence of  Nigerians. For this reason, Mike Igini, a lawyer and a social critic, told TheNEWS last July that: “What we have in Nigeria is that the judiciary is no longer the last hope of the common man or the weak in society. The judgments, particularly in Osun, Sokoto, Enugu, Delta, Ogun, Kebbi, Plateau and other states not only dashed the hopes of Nigerians, they have reinforced the age-long belief that once you rigged yourself into power, nothing on earth can reverse it. In short, justice is for sale in this country.”

But the Edo verdict has the potential of reversing the trend. As many analysts this magazine spoke with posited, there is hope for the fledgling democracy where the electorate can remove the rug from the feet of any political leadership that messes up.

Delta State
What happened in Delta State just before the 2007 elections could, if not properly addressed by Abdullahi, leave the Nigerian judiciary limping for a long time and, more disastrously, jeopardise the future of democracy. Peter Okocha, AC governorship candidate in the state, was excluded from participating in the election. The reason given by INEC was that one of the candidate’s companies was guilty of multiple tax evasion. Worse still, the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, included Okocha’s name in a list of politicians unfit to contest, a development which led to the omission of his name and party’s logo from the ballot paper.

Dissatisfied, Okocha took his case to the Delta State Election Petitions Tribunal, chaired by Justice Lokulo-Sodipe. Other members are Justices T. Tsoho, N.U Gumi and A.A Waiya. Okocha prayed the tribunal to nullify the election of Governor Emmanuel Uduaghan of the  PDP, and order a re-run that would enable him stand as a candidate.

For four months, counsel to Uduaghan and Okocha led each other through legal labyrinths of wherefores and hereinunders. But Okocha’s dream was shattered on 11 September 2007, when the tribunal ruled that he did not have the locus standi to challenge the election because, in the first place, he was not a candidate.

This ruling stunned legal experts because it flew against a declaration of the Supreme Court, made 17 months earlier, in the case of Atiku Vs State. The apex court maintained that only a court “can disqualify or exclude a candidate from an election”. Olisa Agbakoba, Okocha’s lawyer, argued that the Supreme Court had, on 16 April 2007, “ruled that INEC had no power to exclude any candidate from an election, except by a judicial pronouncement in a court of competent jurisdiction”.

Okocha moved a step further, filing a notice of appeal at the Appeal Court in Benin. In an eight-page affidavit, Agbakoba argued that the tribunal was wrong because it had earlier ruled during a pre-trail conference that the respondents’ preliminary objection challenging the petitioners’ locus standi failed to apply the provisions of the constitution. “The Tribunal erred in law, when it failed to apply the proper interpretation to the provisions of Section 144(1) and Section 145(1) (d) of the Electoral Act 2006 in coming to the decision that the appellants lacked the locus standi to present their petition,” Agbakoba said.

He is therefore seeking an order of the Appeal Court to set aside the judgment of the tribunal and hold that Okocha has locus standi. It was not only Okocha that earlier wanted the tribunal to throw Uduaghan out of office. Chief Veronic Bamuza-Mutu of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, ANPP; Chief Ogbe Onokpite of Citizens Popular Party, CPP; and Chief Great Ogboru of the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP, also submitted petitions.

Ogboru went to the tribunal in May 2007,  praying it to void the victory of Uduaghan because it was “marred by irregularities, rigging and allotment of votes”. But the tribunal struck out the petition.

In February, the Court of Appeal sitting in Benin disposed of all the objections raised by both INEC and PDP. It ruled that the lower tribunal erred for not hearing the substantive matter in Okocha’s suit. Unfortunately, the Appeal Court refused to hear the substantive matter.

It was after Okocha petitioned the National Judicial Council, NJC, and President of the Court of Appeal to constitute a new panel to hear the matter that Abdullahi took over the appeal panel. With that, Okocha’s hope was raised. “I have always had confidence in the judiciary. My confidence level has increased, especially now that the President of the Court of Appeal has assumed position as the presiding judge…The court has decided to consolidate my case and that of Ogboru to make them run concurrently,” said Okocha.

Osun State
On15 July 2008, the First Osun State Election Petitions Tribunal upheld the election of Osun State Governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola. The Justice Thomas Naron-led tribunal held that the AC governorship candidate, Engineer Rauf Aregbesola, “failed to prove his case with credible evidence”. Aregbesola, according to Justice Naron, tendered 171 pieces of evidence and called 102 witnesses but, as he put it, most of the witnesses were ward supervisors, not recognised by the Electoral Act 2006.

Nigerians wondered why the tribunal gave the verdict, when on 18 August 2007, it granted Aregbesola’s request to use forensic evidence to prove electoral fraud since, according to it, such report is “admissible in law”.  For this, a British forensic expert, Adrian Forty, was engaged by Aregbesola to use scientific means to analyse materials used during the election. In the end, Naron refused to admit the forensic evidence. What analysts consider curious is that the Second Osun Election Petitions Tribunal, looking into state and national legislative electoral petitions, accepted such in evidence.

Mrs. Aladi Raymond Ejah, a lawyer, said: “The tribunal said Aregbesola could not prove that the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act 2006. Did Justice Naron forget that one of the instruments for proving  electoral fraud all over the world is forensic report? Yet, the tribunal stopped the petitioner from demonstrating the rigging against the provision of the Act, which allows the admissibility of any evidence that is germane to the adjudication of the matter. Having barred the use of the report, the petitioner couldn’t have done magic to prove his case.”

What further put tar on the image of the tribunal was that this magazine published a scoop on how, against the ethics of the Bar and the Bench, Naron and Oyinlola’s counsel, Kunle Kalejaye, were communicating with each other. TheNEWS was able to prove its story with MTN call records showing that Kalejaye, who uses telephone number 08034062075, and Naron (0803703105), apart from exchanging text messages, spoke 46 times between 1 December 2007 and 14 April 2008.

The report nudged Nigerians into questioning the credibility of the tribunal. Nobel Laureate, Professor Wole Soyinka, wrote: “…Indeed, the very technical impartiality of technology that the tribunal had dismissed as inadmissible during hearings ended up betraying them. Chairman of tribunal, partner and counsel had indeed been tapping out love notes on the hallowed floor of judicial neutrality.”

While Aregbesola’s lawyers sent an application to the tribunal, urging its members to disqualify themselves, they also applied to invite MTN. However, the tribunal dismissed the two prayers and gave its verdict which, together with the pussyfooting of the NJC, made Nigerians conclude that it was a highly choreographed judgment.

Aregbesola branded the tribunal’s conduct as tainted. ‘‘The conduct of the Thomas Naron-led tribunal is a big subtraction from the new found integrity of the Nigerian judiciary, in which our faith still remains unshaken. The issues involved are beyond the ambition of an individual, they involve the integrity of our democratic process, the judiciary, national psyche and general dignity and honour of the Nigerian nation,” he said.

Kalejaye, however, went to town with unbridled bragadoccio, giving logic some savage twists. He published in newspapers a letter from MTN, saying it did not release call records to this medium. Kalejaye’s design was to make the public see the call records as forged.  But the telecommunications company did not, if its letter is examined more critically, accuse the magazine of that offence. On 4 August, however, Aregbesola filed a 31-ground notice of appeal against the ruling of the tribunal. This was submitted by Chief Kola Awodein, SAN, Chief Charles Uwensuyi-Edosomwan, SAN, and Mr. Bashir Ajibola at the registry of the Tribunal in Osogbo. AC alleged that the tribunal was wrong to have failed to properly evaluate its witnesses on the erroneous basis that they were ward supervisors of the party. Those in this category, the notice of appeal complained further, “testified before the tribunal to the fact that their responsibilities included monitoring, supervision and coordination of all the activities of their polling agents in all the polling units in their respective wards in addition to monitoring election results at the ward level during collation and to receive written reports from their polling agents.”

AC also complained about the tribunal’s refusal to consider and act upon documents admitted in evidence by the tribunal, based on Section 132 (1) of the Evidence Act, which says “oral evidence is not admissible in proof of, or to add to, a written document; where a document is tendered in court, such document is the best proof of its contents and no oral evidence will, in law, be allowed to add to it; and that a court can always look at and make use of any documents forming part of its record.”

The tribunal also refused, as AC submitted, to rely and act on the written reports of the polling agents and a certified true copy of the April 28, 2008 police final security report on the election because it was stamped “Secret” and was therefore “not a public document”.

On TheNEWS report about alleged secret telephone conversation between Naron and Kalejaye, Aregbesola submitted that the members of the tribunal “were no longer competent and had no more jurisdiction to do so, thereby rendering its judgment a nullity”. Therefore, the party is seeking an order allowing the appeal, an order setting aside the judgment and rulings of the Osun State Governorship and Legislative Houses Election Petitions Tribunal, holden at Osogbo, which judgment and rulings were delivered on 15 July 2008; an order nullifying the judgment of the tribunal dated 15 July 2008; an order directing a retrial of the petition; an order remitting this petition to the President of the Court of Appeal and directing that the same be heard afresh by a fresh tribunal; an order directing the President of the Court of Appeal to constitute a fresh tribunal for the purpose of hearing the petition.

Ogun State
The judgment delivered by the Ogun State election tribunal would enter the Guinness Book of World Records as one of the most ticklish in jurisprudence. The panel threw out the case of Senator Ibikunle Amosun, ANPP governorship candidate, who prayed that the election of Governor Gbenga Daniel be cancelled  for alleged irregularities. This was based on the grounds that Amosun did not disclose his age, party and nationality. The ANPP candidate believed that the tribunal made a mistake by striking out his case on these premises.

He, therefore, pleaded that a new panel be constituted to hear his petition. He headed for the Court of Appeal in Ibadan, capital of Oyo State, where on 13 March, the tribunal’s ruling was thrown out and a fresh hearing ordered.

Justice Abdullahi was the one who drew up practice direction of the tribunals, which states clearly that judges must not “sacrifice substantive matters for technicality”. Abdullahi went a step further by directing the former tribunal, headed by Justice Haruna Isammaiu, to wind up its hearing so that a new panel could be set up.

But Governor Daniel, apprehensive of the outcome of the new arrangement, made a beeline for the court, seeking to know whether the President of the Court of Appeal has power to constitute a new panel. The electorate in Ogun State are looking forward to Abdullahi’s intervention in the matter so that their real choice will be known.

Oyo State
What the election tribunal in that state did was to do away with evidence to arrive at a judgment that made people wonder whether it based its position on invented grounds. The case is between the ANPP governorship candidate, Senator Abiola Ajimobi, and Governor Alao-Akala of PDP.

This is because, Olubunmi Ariyo, INEC’s head of operations, who was cross examined by Chief Adeniyi Akintola, SAN, counsel to Ajimobi, admitted that some results “were re-written, altered or cancelled”.

That was when Akintola  presented the original result sheets for some of the local councils, which were different from what was recorded in the Certified True Copy, CTC, produced by INEC. The CTC of the results in Ibarapa East Local Government Area, for instance, put the result as 4,400, as against the original 330.

Apart from Ibarapa East, results of the election in Ogo-Oluwa, Ogbomoso South and Ogbomoso North local councils could have, according to ANPP, been doctored this way to favour Alao-Akala. All these notwithstanding, the Justice Teni Yusuf Hassan-led tribunal, on 17 March, upheld Alao-Akala’s victory. The tribunal claimed that although “there were cases of non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2006 in the disputed four councils, they were not enough to invalidate the election”.

But there was a lone voice in this wilderness. Justice Wali Bashir gave a minority judgment, cancelling the results in the four disputed councils and ordering a fresh election. “I find it impossible to agree with the majority decision to uphold the election. Thus, the petition is hereby sustained with the votes at the local governments nullified, and fresh elections should be conducted,” he ruled.  This leaves the ball in the Appeals Tribunal. Oyo voters look up to Justice Abdullahi for salvation.

Ekiti State
The Ekiti State Election Petitions Tribunal, chaired by Justice Usman Bukar Bwalla, on 28 August, upheld the election of Governor Segun Oni of the PDP against the AC candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi. The tribunal claimed that was after all invalid votes had been deducted from the scores of the two parties.

Fayemi had earlier filed a petition against Oni’s victory, claiming that he won the election and alleging that Oni’s votes were inflated by INEC. Fayemi alleged that INEC allocated 108,305 votes to him and gave 177,780 votes to Oni whose  election “was characterised by malpractices, violence, intimidation of voters and mass rigging in 11 out of the 16 local government areas in the state”.

The two parties were having disputes in  Ido/Osi, Ijero, Ilejemeje, Ekiti-East, Ekiti-West, Ekiti South-West, Gbonyin, Oye, Ise/Orun and Irepodun/Ifelodun local government areas.

As the hearings continued, 77 witnesses appeared for Fayemi, 57 for Oni and seven for INEC. There were 50,000 pages of documentary evidence and about 2,000 pages of written addresses tendered by the two parties.

The Bwala-led tribunal, in August 2007, ruled in favour of  Fayemi that ballot papers in the disputed areas be subjected to forensic analysis. Fayemi, at a great cost, engaged Adrian Forty, a British forensic expert who, in concert with a Nigerian software expert, Tunde Yadeka, and a statistician, Folusho Aluko, conducted the exercise.

In spite of this, the tribunal threw out Fayemi’s case.

Yinka Odumakin, National Publicity Secretary of Afenifere, alleged  that Oni had earlier announced that he had won three days before the verdict. Odumakin said he was “not surprised because the tribunal rejected the forensic report brought by Fayemi”. He added that the judgment, for want of a worse adjective, was strange.

Niyi Idowu, former Lagos State Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association, NBA, branded it as judicial magic. “One cannot explain how the tribunal came about its verdict. The Senatorial election verdict of the same tribunal hammered on the same issue, which this same tribunal has ruled in favour of,” he argued.

Fayemi has since filed a case at  the Appeal Court in Ilorin. He is seeking the cancellation of votes in all controversial units, wards and local government areas and that he be declared the duly elected governor of Ekiti State. He argued that oral and documentary evidence tendered at the election petitions tribunal “showed that perpetrators of malpractices at the governorship polls were PDP members”.

At the Election Petitions Tribunal, Yusuf O. Ali, SAN, AC’s lead counsel, had prayed that in consequence of the substantial non-compliance, widespread electoral malpractices and various acts of crime that characterised the conduct of the election in the concerned wards and local government areas, that a fresh governorship election be ordered throughout the state, in accordance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2006.

He argued then that “the said election and the return of Olusegun Adebayo Oni are voided by acts, which clearly violated and breached the provision of the Electoral Act, 2006, including but not limited to rigging and manipulation of election results, unprecedented acts of violence, thuggery and abduction and coercion of opponents committed at the local governments, towns, wards and polling stations”.

Fayemi’s lawyer further prayed that the petitioner be declared as the winner of the elections, “based on the result obtained after the physical recount and re-examination by and before the tribunal of votes from the affected local government, wards, units and/or centres”.

 Ondo State
On 28 July 2008, the Ondo State Election Petitions Tribunal, led by Garba Nabaruma, nullified the election of Governor Olusegun Agagu and declared Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party, LP, winner of the governorship election. It ordered that Mimiko should be sworn in immediately as the governor of the state because “he won the valid votes in 12 out of the 18 local governments in the state”. Mimiko won 198,269 votes while the PDP candidate, Agagu won 128,669.

The tribunal stated that Mimiko won 25 per cent of the valid votes in 13 out of the 18 local governments in the state, “thereby fulfilling the constitutional provision which states that a candidate must win at least two-thirds of the votes cast in 13 local governments”. The tribunal, therefore, ordered INEC to issue Mimiko with the certificate of return as the winner of the 14 April 2007 governorship election.

While counsel to Mimiko, Wole Olanipekun, said members of the tribunal should be praised for their judgment, Ondo State Information Commissioner, Eddy Olafeso, described it as “a travesty of justice”. He and Agagu’s lawyer revealed that the governor would appeal the judgment, a process which critics said would delay Mimiko’s immediate swearing-in.

What Mimiko earlier challenged was INEC’s submission that PDP scored 53.2 per cent of the total votes cast, while the LP scored 34.4 per cent. Mimiko rejected the figures, saying that the 349,258 votes which INEC allotted to PDP and the 226,021 it gave to the LP were “not the true reflection of the people’s wishes”.

Mimiko was able to prove how elections were rigged through multiple thumbprinting and more bizarrely, voting by the late Apostle Ayo Babalola, founder of Christ Apostolic Church, who died in the 1950s; American boxer, Mike Tyson; and Central Bank Governor, Professor Charles Soludo, among others.

Imo State
The Imo State Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Owerri on 7 March 2008, declared Ikedi Ohakim as the duly elected governor of the state. This was based on the petition filed by the PDP’s Ifeanyi Araraume and Mr. Uche Onyeagucha of the AC.

The tribunal, chaired by Justice Ibrahim Mairiga, ruled that the petitioners “failed to prove that he (Ohakim) was not duly elected”. The panel did not uphold the two major prayers of the petitioners that the polls were marred by manipulation, irregularities and violence and that he should be declared winner of the election for scoring the highest number of valid votes cast in 18 out of the 27 local government areas of the state.

Mairiga maintained that Araraume did not prove that the said irregularities, manipulation and violence were perpetrated to the governor’s advantage. The panel further stated that it was difficult to accept the fact that elections did not hold, as Araraume claimed, in nine of the 27 local government areas of the state. Mairiga concluded that Ohakim and his party, PPA, polled 677,723 votes as against Araraume’s 328,189. But Araraume and Onyeagucha have filed an appeal at  the Court of Appeal in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, presided over by Justice Saka Ibiyeye. Araraume is asking the Appeal Court to set aside the judgment, which upheld the declaration of Ohakim as the winner of the rescheduled governorship election in Imo State.

Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, counsel to Araraume had, during one of the sessions, moved a motion asking the court to allow him amend the appellant’s application and also prayed the court to deem it properly filed. Bon Nwakanma, lead counsel to Ohakim, and  Livy Uzoukwu, representing INEC, did not object.

A new date of hearing, 27 November, was set by Justice Ibiyeye.

Abia State
In February, the Abia State Election Petitions Tribunal, presided over by  Justice Abdullahi Yusuf, sacked Chief Theodore Orji of the Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA, as governor of the state. It declared Chief Onyema Ugochukwu of the PDP winner.

“We hereby declare that the first set of petitioners (Ugochukwu and his deputy Chinwe Nwanganga) were duly elected,” the tribunal declared. It added, in a show of self contradiction, that Ugochukwu did not score the highest number of valid votes.

In his petition to the tribunal, Ugochukwu also argued that Orji and his deputy, Chris Akomas, were not qualified to contest, because they did not resign their appointments at least 30 days before the election as stipulated by the 1999 Constitution. Orji was Chief of Staff to his predecessor, Dr. Orji Uzor Kalu, while Akomas was, in the same dispensation, Commissioner for Lands. Another reason given by the tribunal was that Orji was a member of a secret society.

Ugochukwu had, in his petition, raised four grievances: namely that INEC conducted the election without substantial compliance with the electoral law; that he (Ugochukwu) actually scored the highest number of valid votes; that Orji and his deputy did not resign and that the governor was a member of Ogwugwu Akpu Secret Cult.

One of the most intriguing cases that Justice Abdullahi has to do something about is the Abia case. The tribunal in the state returned a verdict in favour of Chief Onyema Ugochukwu at the expense of Governor Theodore Orji, on the grounds that Orji and his deputy, Akomas did not resign their positions in Orji Kalu’s cabinet and even continued to use official cars, and that he belonged to a secret society, based in Okija. Orji’s lawyers reportedly did not bring any evidence to counter the accusation. But the tribunal was not convinced that Ugochukwu won a majority of the lawful votes, which has intrigued many lawyers and political pundits. But was it right to declare Ugochukwu winner on account of that? Some lawyers think it was right; and point to the Nigerian Constitution.  “The point is that the Constitution of Nigeria is the supreme law. That is our grundnorm. The supreme law said you are not qualified to run for the office of a governor if you are a member of a secret society. Whether you accept our laws or not, that is a constitutional provision, and any law in violation of the constitution is null and void,” a lawyer explained. A Lagos lawyer also argued that: “It is necessary to point out that if it is proven that any one of the respondents did not resign at all or within the required time, it automatically disqualifies both candidates even if the other respondent resigned as and when due.”

One of the prayers of Ugochukwu was that Orji was not qualified to run for the election ab initio, so all the votes cast for him were null and void. So the only votes cast that are recognised and that are lawful are the ones cast for Onyema Ugochukwu, the lawyer added.To make the matter even more confounding, some lawyers opine that there is nowhere in the 123-page judgment that the tribunal said Orji won the majority of the lawful votes cast, but only said Ugochukwu failed to prove that he won majority votes cast at the election.

The highlight of the case was the fact that Ugochukwu’s legal team brought video evidence to show that Governor Orji was a secret cult member.The video tape was played in open court and several television sets were set up for that purpose to ensure that the tribunal judges and all those in court and outside the courtroom could watch at the same time. The television images clearly showed the 1st respondent (TA Orji) bound, hands and legs in chains, wearing only pants (not even boxers) with a witchdoctor waving a cockerel over his head, etc. What was the response of the respondents to all these? Nothing.

But when Ugochukwu’s men discovered that if Orji was allowed to go ahead with the appeal, he might win, they went on cross-appeal, praying that the court should declare that he won the highest number of votes and that he, Ugochukwu, be declared governor. Nigerians continue to look up to Abdullahi to help correct the bad image the judiciary, especially the appeal courts, has recently acquired on account of some controversies that characterised their rulings.One of these was in Sokoto State where Muhammadu Dingyadi, Sokoto State governorship candidate of the Democratic Peoples Party, DPP, wanted  the Court of Appeal in Kaduna to cancel the victory of Governor Aliyu Wamakko of the PDP. Dingyadi based his prayer on what he described as double nomination because he (Wamako) had been given the ANPP ticket before his candidature in PDP. This, as Dingyadi maintained, ran against Section 32 of the Electoral Act 2006. In addition, he wanted the court to quash the nomination of former Minister of Water Resources, Alhaji Mukhtari Shagari, as Wamakko’s running-mate.

Dingyadi alleged further that Shagari, with the help of INEC officials, forged his nomination form CF001 in a High Court in Nasarawa State, which he backdated  to 12 February 2007, as if he swore to it on that new date.

When the tribunal did not annul the election of Wamakko and Shagari, Dingyadi headed for the Court of Appeal in Kaduna, which quashed Wamakko’s election because of “massive irregularities and non-qualification of he and his deputy.” A re-run was ordered by the court.  Wamakko’s candidature, the court ruled, defied Section 187(i) of the 1999 Constitution because Wamakko still belonged to ANPP when he was made the PDP candidate.

The contradiction in the verdict, critics said, is that the court allowed the two men, who it had disqualified, to contest the re-run when the Electoral Act 2006 has no provision for fresh nomination in this particular case.

Similar to Wamakko’s case was the case of Saidu Dakingari, Governor of Kebbi State, who was challenged by Alhaji Abubakar Gare Mallam, DPP governorship candidate in the state. Mallam had dragged Dakingari to the Court of Appeal in Kaduna, with  minutes of a meeting showing that as at the time Dakingari became a PDP candidate, he was still a member of ANPP.  However, the Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa-led tribunal vindicated Dakingari, a development that drew flak from across the country.

Itse Sagay, SAN, lamented: “The Court of Appeal abuses the fact that it is the final court in election matters. This was why the same court in Kaduna, in another case involving Dakingari, with the same facts as Wamakko’s, still held that Dakingari was qualified to contest probably because of influence from above. The only difference between Wamakko and Dakingari is that the latter has the blessing of Aso Rock while the former does not.”  Dakingari is President Umar Yar’Adua’s son-in-law.

However, Abdullahi, after this controversial matter, posted Bulkachuwa to Jos Court of Appeal, which gave critics more fuel to smoulder the Appeal Court. That was when it heard the matter between Senate President, David Mark of the PDP and Alhaji Usman Abubakar of ANPP. Bulkachuwa, who headed the panel, annulled the verdict of the Benue State tribunal that cancelled Mark’s victory, because, as Bulkachuwa maintained, the Senate President “was not given fair hearing”. That was because the INEC Returning Officer, Lawrence Osungorua, acted illegally by cancelling the elections of the highly controversial Agatu and Okpokwu local councils. However,  the Returning Officer, according to Section 69 of the Electoral Act, can reject results. “The power to reject is synonymous with cancellation. This is why Justice Zainab Bulkachuwa goofed and this precedent cannot stand the scrutiny of the Supreme Court,” a lawyer told TheNEWS.

Electoral drama in Enugu State also showed that the image of the appeal tribunals needs burnishing. Ugochukwu Agballa, governorship candidate of the Accord Party, AP; AC candidate, Dubem Onyia; and DPP candidate, Oscar Okechukwu, dragged Governor Sullivan Chime to court over alleged election irregularities. With the proof that the challengers provided (complemented by evidence supplied in dump trucks by former Governor Chimaroke Nnamani, a godfather who fell out with Chime), the tribunal sent Chime packing, ordering a re-run within 60 days. But the governor went on appeal. The Appeal Court in Enugu threw out the judgment of the lower court.

However, pundits would have been shocked if that appeal court, with antecedents they considered controversial, had ruled otherwise. It was in the same Enugu Appeal Court that, in 2004, Senator Ugochukwu Uba, who was defending his electoral victory was alleged to have greased the palms of some of judges. Consequently, when the NJC wielded its axe, the heads of Justices Okechukwu Ogene and David Adeniji were, in terms of their career, left rolling in the sand. It was the Justice Tijani Abubakar-led panel that saved Abdullahi himself.The challenges before Abdullahi now are that since he took over the case in Edo and Delta, can he do so in all the areas that are highly controversial, and combustible?

Most Nigerian lawyers and other commentators believe that the President of the Court of Appeal is on the verge of making history, and also saving democracy in his fatherland, for many Nigerians had given up hope in the judiciary prior to the judgment of the Appeals Tribunal in Benin, affirming Oshiomhole as the duly elected governor of Edo State.

Chief Godwin Obla, Abuja-based lawyer and political analyst, said for the first time everybody in the country agreed that the judgment was a sound one. Nobody protested, not even the press. “So I believe the Court of Appeal acquitted itself creditably this time around,” he said. Obla praised Abdullahi for providing leadership in time of crisis and his boldness in actually sticking his neck out and taking on these matters. He noted that he has done the credibility of the judiciary a world of good by what he did in the Oshiomhole case.

“I think what the President of the Court of Appeal has done is to provide leadership in time of crisis. He is the head of the Court of Appeal. If he doesn’t provide leadership and everything collapses, it will collapse under him and he takes the blame. People were criticising him before, but after the Edo judgment, has anybody criticised him again? But if he had allowed other people to go to Benin and a contrary judgment had been given, nobody would mention those judges, they would mention the President of the Court of Appeal. So, the reputation of the Court of Appeal is intrinsically tied to the office and the person of the President of Court of Appeal. And you know he is on the verge of history. He could make history for the wrong or the right reasons,” he added.

But there are those who do not think it is right for the President of the Court of Appeal to preside over those cases himself, when there are at least 100 judges in the Court of Appeal. They wonder whether he cannot find trustworthy judges to handle those cases. It is believed that Abdullahi resorted to that option because of the tremendous pressure his judges have come under from “big” Nigerians who want them to sell justice to the highest bidder. Some of these big Nigerians, as Justice Abdullahi told TheNEWS recently, are retired judges.

But Abdullahi has a backer in the President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, who said there is nothing wrong in him presiding on those tribunal cases. “He can preside over any matter as long as he has the time. He is the head of the court and will be held responsible should things go wrong,” he argued.Akeredolu, however, urged Abdullahi to do his best to speed up adjudication on election matters. As far as Akeredolu is concerned, that is the greatest challenge that Abdullahi faces.

– Additional reports by Babajide Kolade-Otitoju and Oluokun Ayorinde.

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