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Bar Nnamdi Ahaiwe wrote:

Let me start from that angle that agitates the minds of our people. Ikpeazu will remain Governor until the appeal process is complete. Even then, at the end, UCHE Ogah CAN NEVER BE SWORN IN AS GOVERNOR. The news making the rounds that UCHE Ogah will be sworn in is spurious. IT CAN'T HAPPEN. After the bizarre decision in the Amaechi case by the Supreme Court, the Legislature intervened by introducing a new clause into the Electoral Act; thus Section 141 of the Electoral Act states as follows:
"An election tribunal or court SHALL NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE declare any person a winner at an election in which such a person has not fully participated in ALL THE STAGES of the said election" (Emphasis, mine)
UCHE Ogah & F.N. Nwosu who have similar cases did not participate at all stages of the 2015 Governorship election; their participation stopped at the Primaries. They never contested the General Election. They never bought INEC Nomination forms & none was filled or submitted by them or any Political Party on their behalf to INEC. Their name was not on the ballot at the General elections so the issue of their being given Certificate of Return & sworn in is illusory in the face of the above cited Statutory provisions which over-ride any judicial pronouncement.
Now, what are the issues? First, no law requires the payment of tax as a condition for contesting any election in Nigeria. That Gov. Ikpeazu included his tax papers was a surplusage ; 98% of candidates DID NOT include tax papers because it is not a requirement. Tax is not mentioned in the nomination form or Affidavit of personal particulars & is not one of the qualifications a candidate is required to provide proof of. It was a mistake in the first place to have included it. Again, Dr. Ikpeazu did not prepare the tax papers. He merely applied to Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) to issue him tax receipts and clearance for the previous three years. BIR called for his records from the relevant Agencies of Govt where he had worked for the period; worked out the figures & issued the document. He had no business with how the doc was made or the entries in it & it is laughable to allege as some persons do that he "forged" his tax documents. BIR made statements to say they are responsible for the document & its contents. If Dr. Ikpeazu had prepared the docs himself using a computer or printing press or forged the signature on an otherwise genuine receipt, that would be a different case. When I handled the first case on this issue filed by BARR. F.N. Nwosu at the FHC, Abuja which I got struck out & which is on similar grounds as the one decided today instituted by UCHE Ogah, the grounds for the action were as follows (BRIEFLY because it is impossible to fully discuss the facts on this sort of forum):
1. That the serial numbers on the tax receipts were dodgy because the three years were written in the same document one after the other; this is however to no issue. Dr. Ikpeazu was a PAYEE; receipts for Payees are only issued when requested & so the years demanded will be written in the same booklet one after the other & so the question of how separate years were written in the same booklet does not arise;
2. Every tax year by convention ALL OVER THE WORLD ends on 31st December. If you ask for your tax receipt for 2015 today, it will be dated 31st Dec. 2015; if you asked to be assessed for 2016 & you pay it today in June, it will still be dated 31st December 2016 & that does not amount to forgery or false statement.
3. That 31st December of a particular year happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday which is a non-working day does not make the tax receipt a forgery, etc
4. It was non-issues and others such as the following that was litigated. When we get a copy of the judgement we will address it in full.
5. For now it is enough to draw the attention of the public to the provisions allegedly breached by Dr. Ikpeazu which is S. 31(5) of the Electoral Act: "Any person who has reasonable grounds to believe that any information GIVEN BY A CANDIDATE in the affidavit or any document submitted by that candidate is false may file a suit....." Clearly for this provision to be breached, the Candidate must have given the information alleged to be false. Dr. Ikpeazu gave none of the information contained in the tax receipts or certificate. ALL HE DID was write to BIR to issue him his tax papers. BIR on their own collected the info, did their assessment, issued the tax papers & signed it...

Apc nd their clueless govt. Are turning dis country up-side down

The electoral act used to conduct that election states that, It is the party/ies that contests an election. and these parties presents their candidates.

PDP stood the election . So as ikpeazu is disqualified to represent the PPD, Uche Ogah is the next in line. Having passed the screening and is fully the party's candidate.


Therefore, since PDP WAS DECLARED THE WINNER, IT IS TO BE SAID THAT THE QUALIFIED CANDIDATE OF THE PDP SHOULD BE SWORN IN, SINCE PDP WON THE ELECTION.


CONGRATS TO UCHE OGAH

The judgement was just an abuse of the judiciary

OP I would have said you mumu ooo but I won't say so but I sincerly hoped you had listened to yourself, abi you are looking for cheap patronage from the sacked Gov

OP can u explain to us what happened in Kogi State?

mcgaius:
Copied...
Bar Nnamdi Ahaiwe wrote:

Let me start from that angle that agitates the minds of our people. Ikpeazu will remain Governor until the appeal process is complete. Even then, at the end, UCHE Ogah CAN NEVER BE SWORN IN AS GOVERNOR. The news making the rounds that UCHE Ogah will be sworn in is spurious. IT CAN'T HAPPEN. After the bizarre decision in the Amaechi case by the Supreme Court, the Legislature intervened by introducing a new clause into the Electoral Act; thus Section 141 of the Electoral Act states as follows:
"An election tribunal or court SHALL NOT UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCE declare any person a winner at an election in which such a person has not fully participated in ALL THE STAGES of the said election" (Emphasis, mine)
UCHE Ogah & F.N. Nwosu who have similar cases did not participate at all stages of the 2015 Governorship election; their participation stopped at the Primaries. They never contested the General Election. They never bought INEC Nomination forms & none was filled or submitted by them or any Political Party on their behalf to INEC. Their name was not on the ballot at the General elections so the issue of their being given Certificate of Return & sworn in is illusory in the face of the above cited Statutory provisions which over-ride any judicial pronouncement.
Now, what are the issues? First, no law requires the payment of tax as a condition for contesting any election in Nigeria. That Gov. Ikpeazu included his tax papers was a surplusage ; 98% of candidates DID NOT include tax papers because it is not a requirement. Tax is not mentioned in the nomination form or Affidavit of personal particulars & is not one of the qualifications a candidate is required to provide proof of. It was a mistake in the first place to have included it. Again, Dr. Ikpeazu did not prepare the tax papers. He merely applied to Board of Internal Revenue (BIR) to issue him tax receipts and clearance for the previous three years. BIR called for his records from the relevant Agencies of Govt where he had worked for the period; worked out the figures & issued the document. He had no business with how the doc was made or the entries in it & it is laughable to allege as some persons do that he "forged" his tax documents. BIR made statements to say they are responsible for the document & its contents. If Dr. Ikpeazu had prepared the docs himself using a computer or printing press or forged the signature on an otherwise genuine receipt, that would be a different case. When I handled the first case on this issue filed by BARR. F.N. Nwosu at the FHC, Abuja which I got struck out & which is on similar grounds as the one decided today instituted by UCHE Ogah, the grounds for the action were as follows (BRIEFLY because it is impossible to fully discuss the facts on this sort of forum):
1. That the serial numbers on the tax receipts were dodgy because the three years were written in the same document one after the other; this is however to no issue. Dr. Ikpeazu was a PAYEE; receipts for Payees are only issued when requested & so the years demanded will be written in the same booklet one after the other & so the question of how separate years were written in the same booklet does not arise;
2. Every tax year by convention ALL OVER THE WORLD ends on 31st December. If you ask for your tax receipt for 2015 today, it will be dated 31st Dec. 2015; if you asked to be assessed for 2016 & you pay it today in June, it will still be dated 31st December 2016 & that does not amount to forgery or false statement.
3. That 31st December of a particular year happens to fall on a Saturday or Sunday which is a non-working day does not make the tax receipt a forgery, etc
4. It was non-issues and others such as the following that was litigated. When we get a copy of the judgement we will address it in full.
5. For now it is enough to draw the attention of the public to the provisions allegedly breached by Dr. Ikpeazu which is S. 31(5) of the Electoral Act: "Any person who has reasonable grounds to believe that any information GIVEN BY A CANDIDATE in the affidavit or any document submitted by that candidate is false may file a suit....." Clearly for this provision to be breached, the Candidate must have given the information alleged to be false. Dr. Ikpeazu gave none of the information contained in the tax receipts or certificate. ALL HE DID was write to BIR to issue him his tax papers. BIR on their own collected the info, did their assessment, issued the tax papers & signed it...

That section of the Electoral act you just quoted has been annulled by the Supreme Court in the case of Jev Vs Iyortom

See details of Supreme Court judgment :

Supreme Court Revisits Decision Ordering Fresh Elections in Buruku Federal Constituency:


The instant case exemplifies that often quoted saying that the Supreme Court is final not because it is infallible, but it is infallible because it is final. In the instant case, the Supreme Court revisited its earlier decision, based on section 141 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended), that fresh elections should be conducted in Buruku Federal Constituency of Benue State. Thus, although section 141 forbids the courts to declare a candidate who did not take part in all the stages of an election as winner, the court held that the section did not apply to the Federal High Court, the Supreme Court, or Pre-election matters to which the instant case fell into, and ordered the immediate swearing in of S.D. Iyortom as a member of the House of Representatives. Facts The fact of this case is an offshoot of the Supreme Court decision delivered on 30 May 2014. That day, the Supreme Court substituted the orders of the lower court (that S.D. Iyortom “the 1st Respondent” be sworn in to represent Buruku Federal Constituency as a member in the Federal House of Representatives), with the order that fresh elections be conducted in which the 1st Respondent’s name will be substituted with that of the 1st Appellant.

A background to the Court of Appeal’s decision can be gleaned from what transpired on the 12th day of January, 2011.

That day, the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) conducted its primary elections to choose its candidates for the Buruku Federal Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives. Oriker Jev (“the 1st Appellant”), the 1st respondent, and one John Tine contested the primary election which was won by the 1st respondent with 8,030 votes. The 1st appellant scored 1,316 votes, while John Tine got 494 votes. The 3rd respondent, who headed the electoral committee that supervised the primary election, submitted a comprehensive report to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). In the report, the 1st Appellant was named as the winner of the primary election.

This prompted the 1st respondent to institute an action at the Federal High Court in Makurdi. In the action, he claimed that INEC failed in its statutory duties to declare him winner having scored the highest number of votes at the end of the primary election. The High Court gave judgment in his favour and ordered the swearing in of the 1st Respondent to represent Buruku Federal Constituency in the Federal House of Representatives. The Court of Appeal affirmed the judgment. However on a further appeal, the Supreme Court considered the provisions of section 141 of the Electoral Act as amended and ordered fresh elections to be conducted with the 1st Respondent’s name substituted in place of the 1st Appellant.

This case invites the Supreme Court to revisit its order, and order the Independent National Electoral Commission to issue the 1st Respondent with a certificate of return as a member of the Federal House of Representatives representing Buruku constituency. The basis for the 1st Respondents application urging the Supreme Court to vary its order is that after the judgment of 30 May 2014, a judgment of the Federal High Court in LABOUR PARTY v HON. ATTORNEY GENERAL OF THE FEDERATION, delivered on 21 July 2011 by G.O. Kolawole J, was discovered. In the judgment, the provisions of section 141 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) were nullified.

Section 141 of the Electoral Act (as amended) provides that an election tribunal shall not declare any person a winner at an election in which he did not participate in all the stages. It is the 1st Respondent’s argument that since the said judgment has not been set aside by a higher court, it is still operative. Thus, the Supreme Court was stated to have mistakenly applied section 141 to his case under the impression that it was still valid. It was argued further that the refusal of the Supreme Court to declare the 1st Respondent as winner of the election was exclusively on the provision of section 141 of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended). The 1st Respondent urged the Supreme Court to utilize its inherent jurisdiction under section 22 of the Supreme Court Act, Order 8 Rule 16 of the Supreme Court Rules 1999 (as amended), and Section 6(6) of the Nigerian Constitution to set aside its previous order of 30 May 2014.

In reviewing the application submitted by the 1st Respondent, the Supreme Court reiterated the age long principle as encapsulated in section 235 of the Nigerian Constitution that it cannot sit on appeal over its own judgment because they were final. According to the court, “There is no constitutional provision for the review of the judgment of the Supreme Court by itself or any other body”. The Supreme Court however listed deserving cases where it could exercise its inherent powers to set aside its judgment. These included cases where the judgment was obtained by fraud, was a nullity, or the court was misled into giving it thinking that the parties consented to it. Some of the cases referred to in support of the exercise of this inherent jurisdiction included ALAKA v ADEKUNLE, SKENCONSULT LTD. v UKE, AGUNBIADE v OKU-NOGA & CO, amongst others.

Thereafter, the Supreme Court took a closer look at section 141 and observed that the “court” referred to in the section did not include the Supreme Court or the Federal High Court. This was deduced from section 133 (2) of the same act where “tribunal or court” was defined as meaning the Court of Appeal in the case of a presidential election and the election tribunal in the case of any other election under the Electoral Act. The court also observed that the said section 141 did not relate to pre-election matters to which the 1st Respondent’s case fell into.

Having considered its earlier decision in AMAECHI v INEC, ORHENA ADUGU GBILEVE & ANOR v MRS. NGUNAN ADDIGI & ANOR, and JENKINS GIANE DIVINE GWENDE v INEC & 3ORS, the court considered the instant case as one deserving of an order to immediately swear in the successful party without the need for another election. On this note, the court ordered INEC to issue a certificate of return to the 1st Respondent, and ordered his immediate swearing in as the member representing Buruku Federal Constituency of Benue State.