As Benue awaits tribunal’s verdict on Ortom/Jime

Johnson Babajide writes that the people of Benue State are waiting with bated breath to know who is their governor legally.

THE Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, has reserved judgment on the petition filed by the governorship candidate for the All Progressives Congress (APC), Emmanuel Jime, and his party  challenging the outcome of the March, 23 governorship election which the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Samuel Ortom, was declared winner.

While there had been palpable fear from both parties at the inception of the cases filed before the tribunal, the apprehension seems to have reduced with the torrents of judgments of the tribunals over different legislative houses cases in the past weeks.

Within the past few weeks, the tribunals had decided about 10 petitions on the state and national Assemblies elections, with the PDP winning eight, thus reaffirming the victory of the party in the state. For instance, the three candidates of the PDP in the three senatorial districts of the state won at the tribunals, while similar victories were recorded in the state House of Assembly and House of Representatives petitions.

Despite the dominance of the PDP, the opposition APC won the Gboko West state constituency, while the case of Agatu/Apa federal constituency, the first to have been decided at the Appeal Court, was won by candidate for the Labour Party (LP).

Most of the Benue North-East and West senatorial elections disputes had been decided, parts of which some believed to have been nucleus of the governorship petition, was decided in favor of the PDP candidates.

Delivering judgment in the petition filed by Mimi Orubibi of the APC against Senator Gabriel Suswam of the PDP in the Benue North-East senatorial election, the tribunal chairman, Justice R. O. Odugwu, held that the petitioner failed to prove her case polling-unit-by-polling-unit and council-ward-by-council-ward, adding that it ought to be done “on a balance of probability.”

“Petitioners must show that there was substantial non-compliance with the Electoral Act. They carry the heavy burden; allegations of criminality not proven beyond reasonable doubt by the petitioners. The claim of unlawful votes of 80,000 in over 400 units by the petitioners is not true.

“The figure was conjured by the petitioners and not even pleaded. The petitioners did not relate document as pleaded in the petition. They did not show that over voting, if removed, would alter the result of the election in their favour.

“They did not prove the issue of falsification of results before the tribunal, to enable it to resolve the issue in their favour. Over voting cannot be proved by card reader alone, but the use of voter register. How the result will swing in favour of the petitioners is still a mirage to the tribunal, as the margin of lead is enormous.

“The petition is not worth wasting judicial effort on. It is helpless and hopeless and is hereby dismissed for lacking merit,” he ruled.

Also, in the case of Benue North-West, where the Minister of Special Duties and Intergovernmental Affairs, Senator George Akume, petitioned Senator Emmanuel Yisa Orker Jev, the tribunal accused Akume of failing to lead evidence polling-unit-by-polling-unit and ward-by-ward to show that non-compliance affected the result of the election.

Justice Odogwu also faulted the use of smart card readers which, according to him, was not acceptable in law, positing that manual voter register would continue to play a vital role in determining election processes.

“Petitioners have a burden to prove non-compliance by tendering registers in proper forms, showing figure of over voting as well as showing that the alleged figure of over voting, if removed, would have favoured the petitioners.

“They also, failed to call polling unit agents to prove lack of proper accreditation and over voting. Instead of calling polling unit agents, they decided to dump documents on the tribunal. Most of the statements of the witnesses are based on hearsay which is inadmissible in law,” he said.

In the case of the Benue South senatorial district, which the candidate of the PDP and former minister, Mr Abba Moro, won, the tribunal chairman, Justice A. A. Adeleye, faulted the petition for being filed outside the pre-trial session, noting that the petitioners failed to prove that the election was not conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act.

The candidate for the APC and former deputy governor of Benue State, Steven Lawani, had challenged Moro on the ground that the election that brought him in was marred by irregularities and non-compliance with Electoral Act.

But in his judgment, Justice Adeleye frowned at the testimonies of the petitioners witnesses, describing them as “unreliable, contradictory, incoherent and mere hearsay and, therefore, inadmissible in law.”

“The petitioners failed to unbundle the documents brought by them and to expect the tribunal to do their job would be unfair. They listed documents without particularisation; since they could not proof their case, they should not have shifted the burden to the respondents. They could not establish electoral malpractice. Thus, the petition is dismissed for failure on the part of the petitioners to proof non-compliance with the Electoral Act,” he ruled.

However, the big case in the eyes of the people of the state is that of the governorship election of which the parties had adopted there written addresses.

During the adoption of written addresses, lead counsel to Ortom, Sebastian Hon, SAN, said they would adopt all the processes and all the arguments contained in them as the second respondents’ arguments.

He further prayed the Tribunal to dismiss the petition and to also award cost, “if not punitive,” stressing that it was a petition which ought not to have been filed. “The petition has been bedeviled and riddled with fundamental errors that no reasonable Tribunal will grant any relief to it.

“It is self-contradictory in many respects, in terms of figures and scores of the candidate; it is also contradictory to the evidence led. As a matter of fact, in Paragraph 5.06, Page 37 of their written addresses, the petitioners admitted that there were errors in the petition and in reproducing Exhibit P2, there are over 50 errors.

“The errors were not corrected. The law is settled that a mistake that is not settled is fatal. Far more fundamental is that the figures pleaded are different from those in what the petitioners tabled in their final written address on Page 15 to 20 of their written address.

“All the entries are wrong and I invite the court to take a look at the following local government areas (LGAs): Gboko, Guma and Buruku; that is Exhibit P33to P44 Gboko and also P95to P103 for Logo and P53 to P58 Guma,” he said.

On card readers, “the petitioner based his petition,” counsel to Ortom said, the card readers did not have any legal role to play in the election.”

But in the adoption of written address for the petitioner, his counsel Yusuf Ali, SAN, prayed the tribunal should uphold the petition and nullify the election of Ortom and declare Jime as well as the APC as the winners and be given the certificate of return.

“The second respondent’s counsel misconstrued the tables and the figures are the written address. He seems to have forgotten that the contention in the petition is the incorrect figures recorded by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Forms EC8A and the petitioners cannot rely on this.

“They were unlawful votes and they were not credited to any of the parties. The tribunal has the powers under the law to nullify such votes. ‘Exhibit P2’ shows number of accredited voters and Exhibit P1139 (card reader report) shows something different, which means that something is wrong with this,” he added.

On the issue of card reader report, Ali said that there was provision for usage of card reader as contained in the Electoral Act, 2015 (as amended).

Ali urged the tribunal to be the first court to apply the card reader provisions in the law, even as the Supreme Court was yet to apply it.