The Kwara Election Petitions Tribunal is under fire for alleged wrongful dismissal of a suit filed against the election of Governor Bukola Saraki. Several weeks after the Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Ilorin, Kwara State, struck out the suit instituted by the People’s Progressive Alliance (PPA) and its governorship candidate, Miss Oyinkansola Aminat Saraki against Governor Bukola Saraki and three others, the matter is still attracting widespread debate.
The 5-member tribunal, headed by Justice B. Iliya, hinged its ruling, which was delivered on 31 July, on the conviction that the duo did not participate in the 14 April election and, therefore, had no locus standi to file the suit. It averred: “Under Section 144(1) of the 2006 Electoral Act, only a candidate in an election and or a political party which participated in the election could present an Election Petition and nobody else.”
Expatiating on what would amount to participation in an election, the tribunal relied on the pronouncement of Justice Kalgo of the Supreme Court in the case of Obasanjo vs Buhari in 2003. Kalgo, according to the Tribunal, said: “Under this section, an Election Petition can be filed by the candidate (who lost the election) or by any political party which participated at the election or the two of them jointly with its candidate at the election. Here, for a political party to qualify as a petitioner it only needs to “participate” at the election and no more and participation simply means “taking part” in any specified way. This may include participation by the political party itself or through its authorised agent.”
It would be recalled that the PPA and its governorship candidate had on 14 May petitioned the Election Tribunal seeking the following reliefs:
(a) That it be determined that the Governorship Election held on 14th April, 2007 in Kwara State and the return of the 1st Respondent in respect thereof were void on the ground of wrongful exclusion of the petitioners, and
(b) That the said election be nullified or voided, set aside and a fresh election ordered.
The judgment has elicited varied reactions from the political class as well as members of the public. While the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Dr. Saraki embraced it with joy, the opposition reacted to it with rage and outright condemnation.
In a petition to the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Umaru Abdullahi, by the Kwara State chapter of All Parties Congress, APC, dated 13 August, the Congress expressed loss of confidence in the state Election Petitions Tribunal and urged the Appeal Court President to immediately dissolve it and constitute a new one that would win the confidence of the people.
The APC alleged that the Tribunal, in its ruling wilfully distorted the judgment of Justice Kalgo of the Supreme Court (JSC) in the case of Obasanjo vs Buhari it referred to. A meticulous perusal of the passage quoted from the pronouncement of Justice Kalgo, according to the Congress, revealed that the tribunal, for reasons best known to it, removed the word “not” from the original passage.
For ease of reference, APC said the relevant portion of the correct decision of Kalgo, JSC is: “….Here for a political party to qualify as a petitioner it only needs to “participate” at the election and no more, and participation simply means “taking part”, NOT in any specified way…”
The Congress said it was taken aback that while the Supreme Court said participation in an election simply means taking part, NOT in any specified way, the tribunal was alleged to have erroneously quoted the Supreme Court as saying that participation means taking part in a specified way.
It wondered how else the petition could have specified that the People’s Progressive Alliance participated in the election when the tribunal had set out some paragraphs of the petition in the ruling from where it could be seen that Oyinkansola Saraki, the PPA governorship candidate, claimed she was screened and cleared for the election, and vigorously campaigned for the election, only to be excluded from the election on the day of the poll.
The parties that endorsed the petition include Liberal Democratic Party of Nigeria, Accord Party, Democratic People’s Party, Fresh Democratic Party, Better Nigeria Progressive Party and African Democratic Congress. Others are Action Congress, Progressive Alliance Congress, People’s Progressive Alliance, National Action Council and Action Alliance.
Also, the National Council of Kwara State Indigenes in its petition of 20 August to the President of the Court of Appeal, called for an immediate disbandment of the tribunal and the setting up of a new one in the interest of justice and equity. The council in the petition, signed among others, by Dr. Mohammed AbdulKadir and Chief Gabriel Ogunbiyi, President and Secretary respectively, and copied to the Chief Justice of Nigeria, also decried the porosity of the registry of the tribunal which allegedly led to reports of loss of vital election documents in the open court.
On the issue of locus standi, the council wondered how someone who is claiming to have been wronged in an election be declared by an election tribunal to be unfit to present an election matter before it.
It hailed the August 16 judgment of the Election Tribunal in Enugu State in a similar matter, where the petition against unlawful exclusion from the ballot in the election of 14 April was upheld as regards to locus standi. It, therefore, urged the President of the Court of Appeal to judiciously act on the petition with despatch.
By Stephen Oni, Ilorin
The News
Tuesday, September 11, 2007
