The Benue State Election Tribunal sitting in Makurdi on Saturday annulled the election of the President of the Senate, Senator David Mark.
The Chairman of the five-member Tribunal, Justice C.I. Uriri, who read out the 150-page unanimous judgment, declared, ”That the return of the first respondent, Senator David Mark, by the second respondent is hereby nullified.”
Shortly after the ruling, one of the counsel for Mark, Paul Erokoro, indicated that Mark would appeal against the judgement.
He said, ”We will certainly appeal. The learned Justices are allowed to err; that‘s why there is a Court of Appeal. We understand that probably because they have had a tiring experience in this case, they may have over-looked certain things.”
However, the legal team to the petitioner, Alhaji Usman Abubakar, declared that it wished that its client had been declared winner of the April 14, 2007 governorship poll in the state.
One of the counsel for the petitioner, Robert Clark, SAN, said justice was served but, ”We would have been happier if our client was declared winner of the election.”
The Tribunal had earlier upheld the submission of the petitioner that elections were held in seven out of the nine local government areas of the senatorial district.
It also upheld the following results from the said local government areas: ANPP=172,029, PDP=98,029.
Although the Tribunal noted that the returning officer for the senatorial district, Mr. Lawrence Ogungoruwa, said he ”inadvertently forgot” to include PDP votes in Oju Local Government area, it said nothing about this in its ruling.
Uriri further declared ”That INEC shall conduct credible elections in Agatu and Okpoku Local government areas within 60 days of this judgment and the results shall be added to the above scores of the candidates to determine the overall winner.”
The judgment which lasted for more than three hours was interrupted at several points by a chorus of ”as the Tribunal pleases” by lawyers and power outage. Heavy police presence was maintained in and around the packed court room.
The Tribunal held that Abubakar proved the case of irregularities in the elections.
It also agreed with him that he had more valid votes cast from the results declared above.
It, however, said it would not serve the interest of justice to disenfranchise the electorates in the two local government areas who accounted for about 25 per cent of the total votes of the district.
In arriving at its judgment, the Tribunal said it considered all evidence brought before it in line with the arguments by the counsel for the petitioner and the respondent based on the provisions of the 2006 Electoral Act.
The Tribunal Chairman observed that the parties in the dispute agreed that there were alterations and inconsistencies in INEC documents presented before the tribunal.
He said it was an elementary principle in law that he, who pleads evidence that was inconsistent with his pleadings, stood the risk of losing the case.
This, the chairman said, led to the question of who stood to benefit from the alterations in the case in question.
He said while it was true that the documentary evidence brought before the Tribunal was at variance with the pleadings of the petitioner, it observed that the alterations on the documents only increased the volume of alterations.
The Tribunal also held that the documents in question were undisputedly in the custody of the second respondent (INEC), which was also a respondent in the matter. It was in the opinion of the Tribunal that it was in fact that respondent who stood to benefit from the alterations and not the petitioner who had a case.
Citing relevant sections of the Electoral Law, the Tribunal held that the returning officer acted within his powers when he cancelled the results of the elections earlier held in Oju and Okpokwu local government areas. The Tribunal said the same officer had no powers to reverse himself on getting to Makurdi from Otukpo.
The Tribunal disagreed with the position of the respondents that the said results were not cancelled. It said it relied on the reports filed by the Divisional Police Officer and other security agencies as well as the earlier report of the returning officer to his superiors.
As soon as the results became public, supporters of parties in the dispute started taunting each other. While supporters of Abubakar jubilated, supporters of Mark did not stop chanting slogans in support of their candidate.
Meanwhile, Mark has in response to the ruling of the Tribunal, restated his confidence in the Judiciary.
He said this in a statement signed by his Special Adviser (Media) Mr. Kola Ologbondiyan, sent via e-mail on Saturday.
Mark said the ruling, which nullified his return as the senator representing Benue South Senatorial District, had provided him with a fertile ground for appeal.
The statement reads: ”The President of the Senate, Senator David Mark, has just been informed of the ruling of the petition brought against his election as the Senator representing Benue South Senatorial District by the All Nigerian Peoples Party candidate, Alhaji Usman Abubakar.
”We wish to state that the decision of the Benue State Election Tribunal as delivered in respect of the April 21 election in Benue South Senatorial District has only provided us a fertile ground to go on appeal.
”We came to this conclusion because we have no iota of doubt on our mind that the good people of Benue South Senatorial District returned Senator Mark at the April 21 election.
”As soon as we receive the details of the judgment, our counsel will make elaborate comments on our viewpoints, having given a notice of appeal already.
By John Alechenu and Oluwole Josiah
Sunday Punch
February 24, 2008
