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Nairaland Forum / Nairaland / General / Politics / Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing (32059 Views)
Profile of the 5-man panel at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal / Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Will Still Favour Me – Adeleke / Rivers governorship: Supreme Court upholds judgement nullifying APC primaries (2) (3) (4)
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Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by Johnnyessence(m): 9:32am On Jun 09, 2019 |
garfield1:forget sokoto state, sokoto state is pdp, if Tambuwal hasn't decamp to Apc in 2014, we won't have heard of Apc in sokoto state .After Tambuwal ends his tenure in 2023, he will handover to pdp candidate too in sokoto state in 2023, so get that. 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by Johnnyessence(m): 9:36am On Jun 09, 2019 |
garfield1:you are never part of supreme court justice, you are just lamenting on what will happen in the supreme court. Let the supreme court judges decide on the cases presented to them. We all pray that justice should be served on the outcome of the case. Starting from tribunal in which they have been following since last year. 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by GEEBITE: 9:44am On Jun 09, 2019 |
Nephew of the Justice.Dont spread fake tales here. dman4mdmoon: |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by GEEBITE: 9:53am On Jun 09, 2019 |
See how somebody is sounding so assured in ignorance.Gbolahan contested against Yayi.He won but their abracadabra prevailed. Tospringe: |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by Skhibanj1015(m): 9:54am On Jun 09, 2019 |
Bro, always get your facts correctly. He not his son but nephew. OfficialAPCNig: |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by OfficialAPCNig: 9:56am On Jun 09, 2019 |
Skhibanj1015:No vex. Then APC doesn't have ground to seek for recuse. |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by Tospringe: 9:57am On Jun 09, 2019 |
GEEBITE:Gbolahan or Gbadebo? Sorry he contested against Yayi, and who told you he won ? someone that is not well known in Alimosho . i know you are chronic PDP supporter that believes any Party that wins aside PDP is being rigged. |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by hmuhammad(m): 12:02pm On Jun 09, 2019 |
hisexcellency34:let me save this |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by Moventist: 12:43pm On Jun 09, 2019 |
PDP is Osun atlast |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by ChristianNorth: 9:24am On Jun 16, 2019 |
garfield1:Tomorrow, we shall see. Osun is closed case. Watch!!! |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by 9jahotblog: 9:40am On Jun 16, 2019 |
Osun: What the courts have said about INEC in split
judgments
As divergent as judicial pronouncements on the
September 2018 governorship election in Osun State have
been, there has been a consensus judicial opinion on a
point — the Independent National Electoral Commission
“went to work” on the result sheets of some polling units
after the conduct of the poll.
On March 22, 2019, the tribunal, by a split decision of
two-to-one of the three-man panel, nullified the election
of Governor Adegboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives
Congress and declared the Peoples Democratic Party as
the true winner of the election.
However, by another split decision of four-to-one of its
five-man panel, the Court of Appeal in Abuja on May 9,
2019, nullified the judgment of the tribunal and affirmed
Oyetola’s victory at the poll.
But the minority and majority judgments at both the
tribunal and the Court of Appeal agreed that INEC
“doctored” the result sheets but disagreed on the effect of
the alterations on the result sheets from the affected 17
polling units on the outcome of the election.
It will be recalled that the majority judgment of the
tribunal had invalidated the results of the Osun State
governorship election in 17 polling units where it held that
the failure of INEC’s electoral officers to fill in eight
columns on the Forms EC8As (the result sheets) of the
said polling units amounted to a “substantial non-
compliance” with the Electoral Act and INEC’s Guidelines
and Manuals for Electoral Officers.
In arriving at its decision to declare Ademola Adeleke the
winner of the election, the tribunal in its majority judgment
subtracted the number of votes polled by both the PDP
and the APC in the 17 polling units from the total number
of votes polled by the two parties in the election and also
nullified the September 27, 2018 supplementary poll which
it held was baseless.
The affected polling units which the tribunal declared were
conducted without “substantial compliance” were eight in
Osogbo, the state capital, and one in each of Ife North,
Iwo, Ayedaade, Ejigbo, Ilesa East, Boripe, Olorunda, Ife
South, Egbedore.
The certified true copies of the Forms EC8A from the
polling units which were tendered in court had all the eight
columns completed, in contrast to the duplicate copies
without the entries which were presented in court by the
petitioners.
But the petitioners – PDP and Adeleke – successfully
proved to the tribunal that the certified true copies of the
documents were doctored by providing the “pink copies”,
which were the duplicate copies issued to party agents in
the polling units after election ended at the various polling
units.
The effect was that the certified true copies of the
documents produced by INEC lost the statutory privilege
of being presumed regular.
Justice Peter Obiorah, who read the lead majority
judgment of the tribunal consented to by another member
of the panel, Justice Adegboye Gbolagunte, said, “The
witnesses of the petitioners said that the CTCs were
‘doctored’.
“Of a truth, that is what they are because the CTCs
contained what were obviously inserted on the forms after
the election was concluded and the genuinely filled forms
issued out to the polling agents.
“Who made those strange entries? When were the strange
entries made?
“The respondents, particularly, the 1st respondent (INEC),
did not provide any answer.
“The fact that the CTCs were tampered with and suddenly
emerged with figures in the columns and the large spread
of the polling unit results where it occurred lends
credence to our opinion that the act of non-recording of
the columns at the time of the election was deliberate.”
In the closing remark in the majority judgment, Justice
Obiorah frowned on the conduct of INEC, which he said,
“holds an office of public trust” and should always strive
“to maintain the sanctity of the electoral process”.
He stated, “We cannot close the judgment without making
a comment on what we observed to be the conduct of the
1st respondent.
“We note that a substantial number of the certified true
copies of the Forms EC8A either had figures on them
altered or had figures entered on them in columns were
not on the pink copies of the Forms EC8A distributed to
the parties’ polling agents on the day of the election which
were tendered before this honourable tribunal.
“The obvious implication of this unfortunate development
is that the 1st respondent went to work on the documents
after the election behind the parties.
“The 1st respondent should realise that it holds an office
of public trust and should at all times strive to maintain
the sanctity of the electoral process.”
Justice Muhammad Sirajo, the chairman of the tribunal,
disagreed with the majority judgment by affirming the
APC’s victory in the election, but agreed that the result
sheets produced by INEC could not enjoy the presumption
of regularity as they ought to.
This he said informed his decision to base his analysis of
the evidence on the ‘pink copies’ produced by the
petitioners instead of the CTCs in INEC’s custody.
He said, “What is more in view of the fact that the
presumption of regularity with respect to the certified true
copies of the result sheets for these 23 polling units has
been successfully rebutted by the petitioners for the
various reasons stated in the majority judgment of this
tribunal, which I subscribed to, there is no reason, for me
to base my decision on them.”
At the Court of Appeal, four members of the panel
affirmed the minority judgment of the tribunal and
affirmed Oyetola’s victory at the poll, while a member of
the appellate court’s panel affirmed the tribunal’s majority
judgment.
Those who adopted the majority judgments in the three
appeals decided on by the Court of Appeal were Justices
Jummai Sankey, Abubakar Yahaya, Isaiah Akeju and Bitrus
Sanga.
Justice George Mbaba disagreed
But all the five panel members agreed that the result
sheets were doctored.
Justice Sankey, the head of the panel who read the lead
judgment, held that it would be pretentious to quibble
about the doctoring.
She said, “Upfront, from the evidence and the pleadings
before the tribunal, it is quite apparent that non-
compliance with the Guidelines and Manual for the
Election in this regard was established by the
respondents, in that by the presentation of evidence of the
certified true copies (otherwise referred to as ‘CTC’) of the
Forms EC8A and their pink counterparts, it was evident
that there were entries in the eight columns of the CTCs
of the Forms EC8As of these polling units which were not
contained in the counterpart copies given to polling
agents of the respondents, otherwise known as ‘pink
copies’.
“Therefore, the tribunal drew the conclusion that the
columns were filled after the pink copies had been given
to the party agents.
“I think the tribunal came to a right conclusion on this
based on the cold hard evidence in the documents before
it. To quibble about this would only be pretentious.”
Justice Sankey, in however affirming the minority
judgment of the tribunal, was quick to add that the
absence of entries in the eight columns in the pink copies
of the result sheets which were relied on by the tribunal,
was not a substantial compliance and did not substantially
affect the outcome of the election.
She added, “Thus from the above pieces of evidence from
the 1st and 2nd respondents’ witnesses, they were
consistent in saying that all these provisions were duly
complied with by the election officials in the 17 polling
units.
“The only problem the witnesses had was in relation to the
fact that the 1st respondent did not fill out the eight
columns for accreditation and ballot accounting in the
Forms EC8A given to them at the close of voting and
announcement of results.
“The evidence of these witnesses, who were the polling
agents, was therefore in disagreement with the averments
of the petitioners in paragraphs 45 to 77 of the petition,
wherein they pleaded that the failure to fill in the columns
in the Forms EC8A was deliberate in order to hide
wrongful entries as to votes and accreditation.
“No such evidence was given by them or elicited from
them under re-examination.
“More significant is the fact that the witnesses all agreed
that they signed the white copies of the results and they
were given the pink carbonised copies.
“In addition, they all agreed that they did not have any
problem with the scores recorded on both the CTCS and
the pink copies of the Forms EC8A and that the scores in
the result sheets were correct.”
On his part, Justice Mbaba, dissented from the Court of
Appeal’s majority judgment, upheld the majority judgment
of the tribunal and nullified Oyetola’s election.
On the issue of doctoring of the result sheets, Justice
Mbaba said, “It was clear that the Form EC8As (pink
copies) given to the parties by the appellant and the CTC
of the same Form EC8A produced from the custody of
the appellant (meant to be original of the same process)
spoke differently, and conflicted, providing the basis for
rebuttal of the presumption of regularity.
“See section 63 of the Electoral Act, as to the study of
appellant.
“It was also found by the tribunal that the widespread
nature of the obvious defect suggested it was a deliberate
act of the appellant to compromise the credibility of the
elections and so it affected the outcome of the elections,
to qualify as substantial non-compliance.”
The PDP and its governorship candidate, Adeleke, had
dragged the APC, the Osun State governor and INEC to
the Supreme Court to challenge the majority judgment of
the Court of Appeal.
The appellants had in their four separate appeals urged
the apex court to uphold their case, set aside the majority
judgement of the Court of Appeal delivered in favour of
Oyetola, the APC and the INEC, and dismiss Oyetola’s
appeal against the majority decision of the tribunal.
Certainly, the Supreme Court’s assessment of the impact
of the non-filling of the entries on the result sheets in the
17 polling units would be central to the decision of the
apex court on the validity of the election.
Culled from Punch https://thenigerialawyer.com/osun-what-the-courts-have- said-about-inec-in-split-judgments/ 1 Like 1 Share |
Re: Osun Governorship: Supreme Court Names Five-man Panel, Fixes Date For Hearing by hmuhammad(m): 10:16am On Jul 05, 2019 |
hisexcellency34:you are a Bastard if you didn't leave the country. I saved your post and I am here for you |
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