As Ighodalo Heads to S’ Court Over Edo Guber Poll Judicial Verdicts…

Alex Enumah writes that the People’s Democratic Party’s candidate in the September, 2024 governorship poll in Edo State, Mr Asue Ighodalo is heading to the Supreme Court to appeal the judgements of both the Appeal Court and Tribunal which upheld the election of Senator Monday Okpebholo as the State Governor.

Few hours after the Court of Appeal in Abuja, dismissed his appeal against the judgment of the Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, for lacking in merit, candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the September 21, 2024 governorship election in Edo State, MrAsueIghodalo vowed to approach the apex court for further redress.

Faulting the judgment which further validated the election of Senator Monday Okpebholo as Edo State Governor, Ighodalo expressed disappointment, lamenting that just as the tribunal the judgment of the appellate court failed to “address the grave concerns we raised regarding widespread acts of non compliance with, and clear violations of the Electoral Act”.

In a press statement issued on Thursday night, the appellant claimed that, “These decisions appear, worryingly, to validate a dangerous pattern of electoral impunity that strikes at the very heart of our democracy and continues to erode public confidence in our electoral process”.

Ighodalo maintained that the struggle has never been about personal ambition, but always about standing with the people of Edo State and defending their sacred right to freely choose their leaders through a credible, transparent and fair election.

“That right was brazenly subverted on September 21st, 2024. The decisions of both the Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, though rendered in the name of the law, in effect ignore the will of the people and reward blatant electoral irregularities”.

While stating that as democrats and patriots, they remain anchored in their belief in the rule of law, he emphasized that they cannot, and will not, allow injustice to go unchallenged.

“I have therefore instructed my legal team to approach the Supreme Court of Nigeria to seek redress. We do so for every voter who queued patiently with hope in their hearts, for every young person who dreams of a better Edo State, and for every Nigerian who still believes that democracy must be well practiced to yield a great country”, he said.

Ighodalo pointed out that the Supreme Court now bears a profound responsibility, not only to interpret the law and apply same to available facts, but to defend the democratic principles that gave the law its meaning. He added that they are approaching the apex court with full confidence in its integrity, its independence, and its role as the final guardian of justice in the country.

“We believe their Lordships will consider not just the letter of the law, but the greater implications for democracy, justice, and public trust. The eyes of Edo people, and indeed all Nigerians, now look up to the Supreme Court with hope.

“To all our supporters, I urge you once more to remain peaceful, vigilant and steadfast. This is not the end. It is simply the next chapter in our collective struggle for truth, justice, and a bright future for our dear Edo State.

“We remain resolute. We remain committed. We remain undaunted. And we shall not rest until the voices of our people are heard and their stolen mandate restored”, Ighodalo assured.

Just as he had accused the tribunal of erring in law and occasioned a miscarriage in justice, so he would also present before the apex court which is the final court in the land. If the justices of the apex court in their findings and conclusions agree with his submissions that the two lower courts erred in their decisions, they are therefore bound to deviate and make fresh orders on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which conducted the September 21 governorship election in Edo State.

Recall that in January 2020, the Supreme Court had in a split decision deviated from the concurrent decisions of the Imo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, to sack the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC’s) declared winner of the 2019, governorship election in Imo State, Hon. EmekaIhedioha.

INEC had declared Ihedioha of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) winner of the Imo governorship election on grounds that he won majority of the votes cast at the election. However, All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Senator Hope Uzodinma, who came fourth in INEC’s order had challenged the outcome of the polls, stating that a substantial amount of votes that swayed the election in his favour were excluded from the total votes counted by INEC. His petition was dismissed both by the Imo governorship tribunal and the Court of Appeal in their respective judgments. But this was not the case when the matter got to the Supreme Court.

The then Presiding Justice, now Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Kekere-Ekun, who delivered the majority judgment faulted the lower courts for failing to look into the issue of excluded votes in 388 polling units.

“Vote due to the appellant Senator Hope Uzodinma and the APC from 388 Polling Units were wrongly excluded from scores ascribed to the appellant (to them),” Justice KudiratKekere-ekun had held then.

“It is thereby ordered that the appellant votes from 388 Polling Units unlawfully excluded from the appellant vote declared shall be added and that the first respondent, EmekaIhedioha, was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the said election.

“His return as the elected governor of Imo State is hereby declared null and void and accordingly set aside.

“It is hereby declared that the first appellant (MrUzodimma) holds the majority of lawful votes cast at the governorship election held in Imo State on March 9, 2019”, she added.

It is this same act, Ighodalo would be asking the apex court to repeat when he finally files his appeal any moment from now. In the appeal which was unanimously dismissed by the appellate court, his lawyers had argued that the tribunal failed to appreciate the nature of the non compliance complained of. The appellants: Ighodalo and PDP had narrowed their complaint of non-compliance with the electoral laws on wrong computation of results at the collation centers which they believed when corrected would prove that they and not Okpebholo and the APC won the September 21, 2024 governorship election.

Robert Emukpoeruo (SAN) one of the appellants’ lawyers, had claimed during hearings at both the tribunal and Court of Appeal, that there was no record of serial number on Form EC25B as required by Section 73(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022; a ground for invalidating the outcome of an election.

 “The tribunal said we required evidence of polling agents or witnesses to prove how the forms were filled or not filled. That was not our case. Our case was that the Form EC 25B did not contain the serial number”’, the senior lawyer said.

He submitted further that the tribunal was also wrong to claim that the documents his clients tendered at trial were dumped on the tribunal; arguing that as against the tribunal’s findings, oral evidence was not needed in the nature of the case of the appellants, who were petitioners before the tribunal.

According to Ighodalo and PDP,  they did not challenge the conduct of the election, but the conflict in the results collated and announced. Specifically, they contended that the results that were collated at the ward level were not the results declared at the polling units.

However, the appellate court in its unanimous judgment delivered last Thursday  aligned itself with the findings and conclusions of the tribunal to the extent that Ighodalo and PDP failed to prove the allegation of non-compliance and how that non-compliance substantially affected the outcome of the September 21 governorship election that produced Senator Okpebholo as Edo State Governor.

The three-member panel in faulting the case of the appellants pointed out that they ought to have asked the tribunal to nullify the election on grounds of non-compliance, adding that a petitioner cannot ask a court to declare him winner of an election that he said was invalid by reason of non-compliance.

Before delving into the merit of the appeal, the appellate court had resolved the cross appeal filed by Okpebholo against part of the tribunal’s judgment, in favour of Ighodalo and the PDP. The governor and the APC had opposed the admission of the Bimodal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) machines by the tribunal on the grounds that the said BVAS machines cannot be tendered from the bar. Although, the tribunal did not attach any value to the admitted BVAS because the appellants failed to demonstrate how the machine operates, but the appellate court saw the admittance as a grave error on the part of the tribunal.

According to the tribunal, the BVAS is one of the key requirements of proving over-voting and since it’s admittance was faulty it did a great blow to the case of the appellants.

Haven faulted the process via which the BVAS was admitted, the appellate court subsequently made an order expunging all the evidence attached to the BVAS as well as its admittance. In their verdict in the main appeal, the appellate court agreed with the tribunal on the issue of over-voting and improper computation of results, stressing that the appellants should have called polling units agents to testify how the results were inflated or how the documents were not filled by officials of the electoral umpire.

The three-member panel also agreed with the tribunal that some of the testimonies provided by some of the witnesses were hearsay for not being presented by the original witnesses who were present at the polling units but by reporting officers.

They subsequently dismissed the appeal for lacking in merit and affirmed the judgment of the tribunal that affirmed Okpebholo’s victory at the election.

Recall that the tribunal had on April 2, dismissed Ighodalo’s petition against the declaration of Okpebholo as winner of the Edo governorship poll. The tribunal had in a unanimous judgment held that the petitioners failed to prove their case of over-voting in 320 polling units across the 18 local government areas of Edo State where election held as well as non-compliance with the electoral laws. In the lead judgment delivered by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, the tribunal observed that the claims of non-compliance was not proved because relevant witnesses were not called to give evidence of the alleged act of non-compliance.

In proving its claim of alleged over-voting and wrong computation of results at the ward and local government levels, PDP and Ighodalo had called 19 witnesses including; collation agents and a research expert and tendered polling units results, collation results, and other sensitive materials. Following a subpoena from the tribunal, INEC had tendered the Bimodal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) machine which the petitioners claimed contained different results from that on polling unit result sheets issued to party agents.

But, the unanimous decision faulted testimonies made by witnesses of the petitioners on the grounds that they were not competent witnesses since they were not the makers of any of the documents presented. “Failure to call polling unit agents, ward agents or other registered voters that witnessed the alleged over-voting”, Justice Kpochi held that “Out of the 19 witnesses called only five were polling unit agents, the remaining were ward and LGA collation agents. They are not direct eye witnesses of what transpired at the polling units”.

Besides, Justice Kpochi further faulted the petitioners for not speaking to the documents. “Since documents does not speak for themselves”, he said, “where no evidence is made, it is not the duty of the tribunal to scrutinize the documents for the petitioners”, adding that, “we are restrained from looking (open them and look at it)”.

Explaining further, the tribunal held that to prove allegations of over-voting, a petition must tender three valid documents which are; Voter’s Register, BVAS and the form EC8A (polling unit result). “How do you prove over-voting if you don’t know the number of the registered voters?, the tribunal chairman asked.

Similarly, Justice Kpochi observed that contrary to the position of the petitioners evidence showed that there was pre-recording of sensitive materials used in the conduct of the election. In the final analysis, the tribunal stated that all the pleading and evidence of the petitioners failed to substantiate their claims of non-compliance and over-voting, adding that the 19 witnesses called by the petitioners is far less than 25 percent of the over 4,000 polling units where the election held.

He subsequently dismissed the claim of alleged non-compliance and over-voting made by the petitioners and went ahead to affirm the declaration of Okpebholo as the lawful winner of the September 21 governorship election in Edo State.

It is this same decision that has been affirmed by the Court of Appeal, which in turn would become the subject of an appeal at the Supreme Court.

After the 2020 judgment that returned Uzodinma as lawful winner of Imo State governorship election on account of INEC’s failure to include votes from 388 polling units in the final election results, the apex court has not found any reason to deviate from the concurrent judgments of the tribunal and Court of Appeal.

Would Ighodalo’s case of wrong computation of results be convincing enough to warrant that deviation? We await the verdict of the apex court after their findings and conclusions.