Followers of political events in Anambra State within the state, and elsewhere in the country would have given a special marking to Tuesday 15th April, 2014.
It was the day the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu,under the Enugu Judicial Division speaking through panel of five justices ruled unanimously in six petitions to redraw the map of the four petitions currently at the trial stage in Anambra State Gubernatorial and Election Petitions Tribunal in Awka.
Except for one of the appeals filed by Dr Chike Obidigbo, who claims to be the authentic candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, and to some extent , the appeal by Senator Chris Ngige candidate of the APC, along with his party seeking a reversal of th decision of the Tribunal not to allow an application that consolidates all preliminary objections on point pf law to the final stages to save time in the 180-day lifespan of the matters in court, all others were tied by one broad theme-striking out of some paragraphs of the petition for or another in the four peitions.
Incidentally, the line demarcating the issues also demarcated the success pattern. All matters seeking to restore paragraphs of the petition struck out by the lower tribunal succeeded, and all other matter failed. This may be a coincidence, but it remains the fact.
Let us begin this analysis with the petitions that failed. They were two in number; one was brought by Dr Chike Obidigbo seeking to reverse the decision of the tribunal which refused its application to be joined in the other three petitions before the Tribunal.
There are four petitions before the Tribunal.
The first was activated by Dr Obidigbo on December 19, 2013. Identified with the Suit No : EPT/AN/GOV/01/2013,It seeks that Obidigbo should be declared the candidate of All progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) in the elections. In the grounds of the petition, the petitioner claims that Obiano is not qualified to be a candidate, having failed to satisfy the APGA constitution, and being guilty of multiple registrations in the INEC voter register .This petition is standing on its own at trial.
The second petition with Suit Number ;EPT/AN/GOV/02/2013). was brought jointly by Senator Chris Ngige, candidate of All Progressives Congress (APC) and his party seeking on 20th December,2013 seeking total cancellation of the elections on four grounds.
The grounds are that the election was conducted with substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act and the INEC manual and therefore Mr Obiano was not validly elected. Secondly, the Ngie and APC aver that that the election was marred with corrupt practice.
The remaining ( third ad fourth ) grounds are that Mr.Obiano was not elected by majority of lawful votes, and he was not even qualified to contest the election.
Again Ngige illustrated Obiano’s multiple registration and went ahead to qualify the second and third voter cards as forged certificate, since only the first registration done in Lagos remains valid, yet that was not what was sumitted to INEC to prequalify Obiano to contest.
The third petition by PDP (Suit No: EPT/AN/GOV/03/2013), shares similar grounds with the second by Ngige and the fourth by Comrade Tony Nwoye, (EPT/AN/GOV/04/2013) PDP candidate in the election. Little wonder they have been consolidated at the tribunal.
So far one commonality has been identified in the four petitions. All seek to establish that Obiano was not qualified to contest the November 2013 elections.
Before going further on the issue of qualification, lets us first understand the basis for Obidigbo’s refused appeal.
Having filed his own petition at the tribunal seeking to be declared the authentic candidate, of APGA in petition 01, Obidigbo approached the tribunal with an application for an order of the tribunal seeking to joining him as a party in each of the three other petitions at the tribunal (02,03 and 04). The tribunal agreed with the petitioners in the latter that the application be refused. Obidigbo appealed. As one of the six latest judgements under focus, the appeal court described the appeal as ‘unmeritorious’ in the shorted ruling of all read by Hon Justice Ignatius Agube and endorsed by four other judges.
The second appeal refused was filed by Ngige against the decision of the tribunal not to uphold the provisions of paragraph 12 (5) of the First Schedule of the Electoral Act which seeks to cure the mischief of time wasting at petition tribunal hearing arising from objections, applications and interlocutory appeals. Ngige had through his lawyers applied on 20th January that all preliminary objections on pints of law should be documented and reserved till the final address and given with the and ruled in he final judgement. The Tribunal refused this application on 28th February, 2014.
Thereafter, the tribunal went ahead to consider and grant the application by all respondents to strike out the said paragraphs.Ngige’s ;lawyers read bias into this and applied to the appeal court to overrule the lower court’s decision, and set up a new panel to hear the petition. This appeal failed because, the appeal court held that 12 (5) ought to be read in conjunction with Section 47 (1) and 18 (9) of the same schedule, which allows he court a discretion and allow the respondents some options.
All the other four appeals succeeded?
This brings us back to the issue of qualifications.
Defence lawyers had and tribunal pleaded that the issue of qualification is a pre-election matter. The petitioners argued vigorously against that on the authority of decided cases.
The tribunal agreed with the Respondents and struck out all paragraphs relating to issues of qualification at various times ranging from February 25 to March 5. This affected all four petitions. All of them appealed.
Yesterday’s judgement of the appeal court restored all issues of qualifications as election matters which can be decided by the tribunal. The appeal court judgement cited the Supreme Court Decision in the case of Belgore vs. INEC which as admitted by Justice Agube, overruled the Appeal Court decision made n Ilorin, in which the learned judge was a panellist.
With this pronouncement, Obiano has to prepare a defence in four petitions in determining the issue of whether he is qualified to contest the elections or not. Most prominent is the issues of and arising form the alleged multiple registration in the INEC voter register. But beyond that Obidigbo is also challenging the constitutional qualification of Obiano, contending that he emerged from an improperly constituted panel, having not been properly constituted and not coming in the right APGA leadership.
But beyond these issues of qualifications, the tribunal illustrating with Ngige’s petion also struck out schedules attached to his pleading as an ‘innovation’. Petitioners’ insisted in the course of argument that the method was adopted to makes the analysis and tables clearer and less beclouding of the main petition. The tribunal was not persuaded. The appeal court was convinced by this argument. Hence endivenc will be led by Ngige on all four voter registers cited in his petition on schedules of anaysis indicating voting in the elections by children, inanimate objectsdouble registerers, including Obinao , and the like.
In addition, paragraphs struck our for being ‘vague and nebulous’ which cuts across the foru petitions are all back, just like the ones seeking that APGA thugs should be joined in the suit,as the appellate court was convinced that it is sufficient to join APGA.
But perhaps what is arguably the most salient aspect of the appeal court ruling is the conclusive establishment of the Otuocha Hgh Court decision which the respondents dangled as a judgement is realm and therefore an estoppel against further adjudication of the matter as incompetent’
‘ It is inconceivable that a judgement in a case that has been activated by a ‘busy body’, not being a member of the 25th Respondent (APGA) should now constitute an obstacle for those with genuine interest from pursuing the justice of the matter’ Hon Justice Bolaji Yusuf firmly ruled in the appeal by PDP,effectively breaking the barrier presented before now by the cited high court judgement.
Incidentally, the judge who gave the Otuocha judgement has been given a written warning b the Nigerian Judicial Commission (NJC) although it is not clar whtether the judgement is question had anything to do with the decision of NJC.
Conclusively, the issues in the Anambra Gubernatorial litigation have been redefined substantially. What with Ngige having closed his case on the prompting of the tribunal before the statutory 14 days. New horizons are definitely open, and for Obiano, the swivel chair, may no longer be as smooth and calm and cool,as the next 58 days (when the 180-day lifespan of the petition would be spent), are pregnant with judicial discoveries.