Hi,
I saw this opinion piece online and its quite interesting the writers perspective. As we know, Politics is a hot topic in this country and some journalist like to share opinion on happenings in the political scene.

I read this and i was amazed at the writers perspective.

Read, Enjoy and Share with friends.

[center]Abia Guber: Why Appeal Court Declared Alex Otti Winner BY BAMIDELE SALAKO[/center]

There was jubilation in Abia State when the Court of Appeal sitting in Owerri, on December 31, 2015, declared the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) governorship candidate Dr Alex Otti as the winner of the election and supplementary poll held on April 11 and 25, 2015. The court, presided over by Justice Oyebisi Omoleye, nullified the declaration of “Governor” Okezie Ikpeazu as the winner of the elections.

Otti and APGA were the appellants, while Ikpeazu, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) were the respondents. In arriving at the decision, the appellate court held that Otti scored the majority of lawful/valid votes cast and satisfied the constitutional requirements of one-quarter of votes, in at least two-thirds of the 17 Local Government Areas (LGAs).

On that basis, the court held that Otti “is hereby returned as the duly elected governor of Abia State.” Also, on the panel were Justice Chinwe Iyizoba, Justice Samuel Oseji, Justice Tijani Abubakar and Justice Jamilu Tukur.

Justice Omoleye added: “It is hereby ordered that the Certificate of Return already issued to the first respondent, Okezie Ikpeazu, by the third respondent (INEC) is set aside. “It is further ordered that the third respondent, INEC, shall forthwith issue the Certificate of Return to the first appellant, Alex Otti, as the winner of the Abia State Governorship elections conducted on the 11th and 25th April 2015.”

Seventeen issues were raised in the appellant’s brief of argument filed on December 4, 2015. Among the issues were whether, in the light of the Electoral Act, the approved regulations and manual for election and evidence on record, the learned tribunal judges were not wrong when they failed to set aside Ikpeazu’s return as a winner.

Otti and APGA also urged the court to determine whether having regard to the pleadings and the evidence on record, the tribunal was not wrong in holding that the petitioners’ claims were not grantable. They also asked whether the tribunal was not wrong in failing to resolve the issue relating to who, between Otti and Ikpeazu, scored the majority of lawful votes cast in the election, an issue that was properly raised before the tribunal and supported by evidence.

It was the appellant’s contention that Section 140 (3) of 2010 Electoral Act states that if a tribunal or court determines that a candidate who was returned as elected was not validly elected on the ground that he did not score the majority of valid votes cast, the tribunal shall declare as elected the candidate who scored the highest number of valid votes and who satisfied constitutional requirement.

To be declared the governor, a candidate must satisfy two conditions, namely: the constitutional requirement of spread in two/third of the Local Government Areas, and the highest number of lawful votes – which refers to those cast in accordance with the Electoral Act. Conversely, an invalid vote cannot be used to compute the number of votes cast in an election. In HDP vs Obi (2012) 1 NWLR (PT 1282) 464, invalid means is defined as “without validity, efficacy weight or cogency and having no effect.” According to the court, computing an invalid vote “will be like counting both the living and the dead in a census exercise.” The court also compared an invalid vote to a child asking the mother “to add chaff that has been sifted from the wheat into the wheat meal on the fire.”

Otti and APGA’s prayer was that the votes recorded for Obingwa, Osisioma and Isiala Ngwa were characterised by malpractices, and were, therefore, invalid and should be cancelled. The appellate court agreed with the submission, contrary to the tribunal’s position that there was a rerun in those areas and that Otti and APGA participated.

The tribunal had ignored exhibits showing over-voting and other irregularities. It ruled that having gone through a rerun, all exhibits tendered by Otti’s witnesses would not be considered. The tribunal, therefore, did not look at documents tendered by the appellants to show substantial non-compliance and over-voting.

The law is that once over-voting is established, results of those areas must be cancelled, and if the leading candidate has enough spread constitutionally, he will be declared a winner. This is because there is no rule that everybody must participate in an election. Even if the election did not hold in those areas, results will still be declared.

Otti’s lawyers referred to precedents, such as the case of Aregbesola vs Oyinlola, in which 10 LGAs where over-voting occurred were cancelled and Rauf Aregbesola was returned after more than 300,000 votes were invalidated; as well as the case of Agagu vs Mimiko, in which the result for wards in Ese Odo, Okitipupa and Akoko Northeast were nullified and Olusegun Mimiko was declared the winner.

Other precedents include Fayemi vs Oni, in which results were also invalidated and Kayode Fayemi was returned as having scored the majority of lawful votes, and INEC vs Oshiomole, in which results for Etsako Central, Akoko Edo LGA and several wards were cancelled yet Oshiomole was declared governor. Otti’s lawyers argued that it is only when there is no winner of majority votes and with the constitutional spread that rerun can be ordered.

On whether Otti’s reliefs were grantable, the appellate court said it found it quite perplexing that the tribunal, instead of reading and considering carefully the pleadings and evidence adduced in Otti’s petition and determining all the issues raised, seemed more concerned with getting rid of as many of the reliefs as possible by striking them out for one “unacceptable” reason or the other. “All the reasons given are untenable and at the end of the day amount to depriving the appellants of fair hearing guaranteed under the Constitution. These generalisations that the claims of the appellants/petitioners were not grantable without giving plausible and definite reasons are unacceptable in law. The view of the tribunal that the claims of the appellants were not grantable is clearly misconceived in law and facts,” Justice Omoleye said. On the issue of over-voting, the appellants had complained that the tribunal wrongly concluded that there was proper accreditation of votes and that there were other modes of accreditation recognised by INEC.

Upholding the appellants’ arguments, the appeal court held: “The finding of the tribunal that the card reader data is not the primary and sole source and record of a number of accredited voters was wrong.”

On annulment of elections in Obingwa, Isiala Ngwa North and Osisioma, the appellate court faulted the tribunal for not going ahead to consider the appellants’ grievances on merit after holding that the State Returning Officer had no power to annul and de-annul the election results. “In what appeared to be a conscious resolve to avoid and evade the determination of the petition on the merit, (the tribunal) chose to embark on swinging forward and backward, delving into imaginations that results were cancelled and elections declared inconclusive and that re-run elections were held in the disputed three LGAs. The conclusion does not represent the correct position of the law, based on the evidence before the tribunal,” the Court of Appeal held.

The appellate court found that the results from the LGAs tally with the appellants’ grievance that they do not represent the correct outcome of the election. The appellate court said ordering of fresh election could only arise where a clear winner did not emerge after deduction of illegal votes. Having established that there was over-voting in Isiala Ngwa, Obingwa and Osisioma, the court said the entire votes recorded there would be deducted from the overall result declared by INEC. The Court of Appeal held: “Following the deductions of the unlawful votes garnered from the disputed three LGAs, the first appellant (Otti) having scored 164,332 valid votes, as opposed to the first respondent (Ikpeazu) who scored 115,444 votes, ought to have been declared the winner of Abia State Governorship elections conducted on 11th and 25th April, 2015.”
The Court of Appeal, therefore, set the tribunal’s judgment aside. It held: “Having resolved all the above issues other than the issue relating to the powers of the Returning Officer with regards to cancellation and de-annulment of election results in favour of the appellants, we hereby hold that this appeal has merit and out to succeed. “The appeal is accordingly allowed. The judgment of the tribunal delivered on the 3rd of November, 2015 is hereby set aside.”

How on earth did you expect a compromised tribunal that received hundreds of millions of naira from the failed state govt to give a sound judgement.
Abeg leave trash for ASEPA and okezie ikpeazu

@henchamb,
I really do not know the real happenings in Abia State but what i know for a fact is that people seem to like this Alex Otti guys and really most power players in Abia are behind him. Will Ikpeazu go to the supreme court after this ruling? Only time will tell.

I like the opinion piece though, but lets see what people think about this happenings.

Ikpe'Azu bribed and bought houses for tribunal judges using state fund.
That's why no evidence was good enough.
Thank God there's justice at last.

@Paramakina202, I am not sure of that accusation oo. But if he did that, then he got wat he deserved. Lets see what Alex Otti can deliver to abia state.

designguru:
@henchamb,
I really do not know the real happenings in Abia State but what i know for a fact is that people seem to like this Alex Otti guys and really most power players in Abia are behind him. Will Ikpeazu go to the supreme court after this ruling? Only time will tell.

I like the opinion piece though, but lets see what people think about this happenings.

Ikpeazu is already in court. The supreme court will decide within 5 weeks from now.
Abians voted for apga

Having read this judgment, Ikpeazu has no case at the supreme court. Ikpeazu is an Ngwa man and Obingwa, Isialangwa and Osisioma are all his strongholds. In his bid to rig his stronghold, he virtually rigged himself out of Goverment house by 'over voting'. Below says it all

The law is that once over-voting is established, results of those areas must be cancelled, and if the leading candidate has enough spread constitutionally, he will be declared a winner.

So they subtracted Ikpeazus area which left Alex Otti as the only person to have majority votes in 2/3rds of the election. Ikpeazu should start looking for the trailer that will remove his belongings from Government House instead of wasting his time at the Supreme Court.

@Zendy, hahahaha. This is serious oo. You have no support for Ikpeazu at all mehnn. Anyways, since he is in the supreme court, lets hear the judgement from that side first. What i knw is that Abians kind of like Alex Otti. Anyways, time will tell who stays in the office.

zendy:
Having read this judgment, Ikpeazu has no case at the supreme court. Ikpeazu is an Ngwa man and Obingwa, Isialangwa and Osisioma are all his strongholds. In his bid to rig his stronghold, he virtually rigged himself out of Goverment house by 'over voting'. Below says it all






So they subtracted Ikpeazus area which left Alex Otti as the only person to have majority votes in 2/3rds of the election. Ikpeazu should start looking for the trailer that will remove his belongings from Government House instead of wasting his time at the Supreme Court.

Okezie pack your load

designguru:
@Paramakina202, I am not sure of that accusation oo. But if he did that, then he got wat he deserved. Lets see what Alex Otti can deliver to abia state.

He did worst than that.

paramakina202:
Ikpe'Azu bribed and bought houses for tribunal judges using state fund.
That's why no evidence was good enough.
Thank God there's justice at last.

Actually, in the Igbo language, "Ikpeazu" can mean "bribed judgment".

zendy:
Having read this judgment, Ikpeazu has no case at the supreme court. Ikpeazu is an Ngwa man and Obingwa, Isialangwa and Osisioma are all his strongholds. In his bid to rig his stronghold, he virtually rigged himself out of Goverment house by 'over voting'. Below says it all






So they subtracted Ikpeazus area which left Alex Otti as the only person to have majority votes in 2/3rds of the election. Ikpeazu should start looking for the trailer that will remove his belongings from Government House instead of wasting his time at the Supreme Court.

same thing wike did in rivers state.

The appellate court said ordering of fresh election could only arise where a clear winner did not emerge after deduction of illegal votes.

this is where I was thinking ikpeazu had a case, but it's otherwise

zendy:



Actually, in the Igbo language, "Ikpeazu" can mean "bribed judgment".

Correct.Ikpe'Azu is living his name.
Ndi ohi vote agaghi achi anyi ozo.

Ikpeazu also mean backward (always at the back)

The supreme Court is highest court in the land, they ruling is final save you want to appeal to God. Those who make free and fair election impossible in the three local government has now turn around to weep on self inflicted wounds. We want to vote, it's too late. the analysis of the appeal court is in tandem to sound logical and plethora of case laws therefore if your in pdp government in Abia Be careful of our yam. new governor is coming in. to avoid desuki experience. Pdp succeed in rigging themselves out of abia state.

If you know Aba very well, you will know that these LGAs mentioned are not Okezies strong hold, part of Obingwa cut accross Aba such as ogbor hill Opobo junction, Obikabia etc you will see more Ngwa natives in villages like Onicha Ngwa and Mgboko, Akpambato etc, as for Osisioma LGA that comprises of Aba city starting from Rhema University(ie Living word Church) World bank estate, parts of ariaria , where you will see majority of indigenes at Ekeakpara and some villas near by. As for Isialangwa north and south LGAS, that's where OTTI our governor is from, those two LGAS gave him votes more than ikpeazu the interim governor

zendy:
Having read this judgment, Ikpeazu has no case at the supreme court. Ikpeazu is an Ngwa man and Obingwa, Isialangwa and Osisioma are all his strongholds. In his bid to rig his stronghold, he virtually rigged himself out of Goverment house by 'over voting'. Below says it all






So they subtracted Ikpeazus area which left Alex Otti as the only person to have majority votes in 2/3rds of the election. Ikpeazu should start looking for the trailer that will remove his belongings from Government House instead of wasting his time at the Supreme Court.

onflicting Judgements
By Kunle Olasanmi
— Jan 14, 2016 5:52 am | Leave a comment
KUNLE OLASANMI in this report writes on the worries expressed by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed and other stakeholders in the judiciary on the inconsistencies in some judgements of the Court of Appeal in some election matters

Since the judgements at the various election petition tribunal across the country moved to the Court of Appeal, ‎some of the judgments coming out of the appellate court have been confusing enough to get legal practioners and other stakeholders in the nation’s juudiciary agitated.

About two weeks ago, one of such judgments was delivered by the Owerri Division of the Court of Appeal wher the election of the Abia State Governor, Dr Okezie Ikpeazu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was set aside.

About two weeks ago, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed expressed worries over conflicting judgement coming from the court of appeal

The court had declared the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Alex Otti the winner of the election.

To arrive at this conclusion, the court cancelled elections in three local government areas including the governor’s local government area and ended up disenfranchised not only him but over 300,000 voters.

The Court of Appeal after reveiwing the number of votes recorded for Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu at Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa North Local Government areas being higher than the number of votes captured and transmitted to the Independent National Electoral Office (INEC) in Umuahia by the Card Reader Machine concluded that there was overvoting.

The approch adopted by the court rasied many questions: What happened to manual accreditation where the Card Reader fails? Was it not part of INEC Guidelines? Why did INEC provide Incident Forms? Was it only in Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa North that there were more votes than the Card Reader recorded? What about Aba North and Aba South? What about Arochukwu and Ohafia? Manual accreditation was done in these areas too. Why did the court accept manual accreditation in these areas and disallowed it in Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa North?

If elections are conducted to determine the wish of the people, the judgment of the court of appeal in Abia has replaced the wish of the people with that of the justices.

Whereas in mature democracy voting remains the only avenue through which elective political office can be attained, the court of appeal appears to be towing the line of imposing elected officials on the electorate, a move the Supreme Court has repeatedly said should be discouraged.

In the famous Amaechi Vs Omehia case of 2007, the Supreme Court declared Rotimi Chibuike Amaechi as the duly elected Governor of Rivers State eventhough Amaechi was never on the ballot paper for the elections. He neither campaigned nor was he voted for. The Supreme Court, in its wisdom, held that the mandate belonged to the political party and having determined that Rotimi Amaechi was the rightful candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party that won the 2007 Governorship Elections in Rivers State, it ordered that he be sworn in as Governor.

However, that judgment led to the amendment of the Electoral Act and the inclusion of a provision which is to the effect that no individual shall be deemed to have won an election if he did not stand for election into that particular office in Nigeria. The intention of the law makers is to render the judgment in the Amaechi case a nullity and inapplicable to our electoral system.

It would appear that what the National Assembly has corrected by the amendment to the Electoral Act after the Amaechi case, the Court of Appeal, Owerri Division is seeking to reintroduce via another means in the Abia Governorship election dispute.

The learned justices of the court of appeal in declaring Otti winner of the Abia governorship election have deliberately disenfranchised a large per centage of voters in Abia. The court has merely used the votes from 14 LGAs to declare a man winner of governorship elections in a state with 17 LGAs. What demoractic sense does it make to shut out entire people in three local government areas?

More often than not every politician receives more votes in his local government area and environ. By choosing to nullified votes cast for Ikpeazu in his local government, the court of appeal has shifted the goal post in favour of his opponent. To put the candidate at even, may be votes cast for Otti in his local government should have been cancelled as well.

As one commentator said: ”This has gone beyond a mere electoral dispute. It has become a unified statement by a people that they cannot be disenfranchised in a State where they are bonafide citizens and residents. How do you tell over 300,000 people belonging to a homogenous ethnic and language grouping that you do not need their votes to determine who governs their state?” If only the appeal court justices had adverted their minds to this, they would propably have not taken the line of thoughts they took. The judgment is capable of raising and had indeed raised ethnic tension among the peaceful people of Abia state.

If the results of election into both the National Assembly and State House of Assembly is anything to go by, it supports the claims that PDP remained the popular party in the state.

The All Progressives Grand Alliance only has one member of the House of Representatives out of the available 11 Seats up for grabs in the National Assembly elections and 6 Members of the Abia State House of Assembly in a 24-Member House.

So, the question then becomes, if APGA can only lay claim to 7 out of 35 available Legislative Seats contested for in Abia State (note that some of the opponents of these 7 did not bother going to the Tribunal. Who knows what would have happened?), where then did they get the majority votes to return their Governorship candidate Mazi Alex Otti as winner of an election that held the same day and at the same time?

The judgment has further confirmed the Court of Appeal as the most inconsistent court in Nigeria. As today, nobody can say categorically what the position of the court is with regard to use or non use of card readers machines during the governorship election.

Only recently, the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed admonished the justices of the court of appeal and urged them to be consistent.

The CJN said: “As the guardians of the law, we must not only be just but also convey certainty in our justnes.”

The Peoples Democratic Party which is largely affected by the decisions of justices of the Court of Appeal had accused the justices of the Court of Appeal of giving conflicting judgments in similar cases and refusing to follow the precedents laid down by the Supreme Court.

In apparent allusion to these myriad of complaints the CJN said: “My Lords, it bears reminding that the overriding objective of every legal system in the world is to do justice. However, this cannot be achieved where there is confusion as to the state of the law as pronounced by the court.”

He told the justices that they were not allowed to continue to shift the goalposts when the game was on.

While advising them to adhere to certainty and stop creating confusion, Justice Mohammed said: “As your lordships will agree, where an aggrieved person perceives, whether rightly or wrongly, that they will not receive justice, such a situation can indeed bode ill for the community in which he lives and can lead to acrimony and anarchy.

“We must not ignore the negative perception that is occasioned by conflicting judgments delivered at various divisions of the Court of Appeal. Such judicial contradictions only result in untold hardships to litigants in their quest for justice. They further cast your lordships in an unfavourable light and leave the judiciary at the mercy of inuendos, crass publications and editorials.”

 
http://leadership.ng/news/491557/appeal-court-conflicting-judgements

henchamb:
How on earth did you expect a compromised tribunal that received hundreds of millions of naira from the failed state govt to give a sound judgement.
Abeg leave trash for ASEPA and okezie ikpeazu

Only fools think that kangaroo judgement of the illiterate lagos zone judges will stand.
Ottila cannot win a free and fair election in Abia unless Ndi UkwaNgwa did not vote for their son Okezie. Satan has been using these minorities to torment Abia but we are not out to protect our votes. Enemies of progress like you cannot stop us by using outdated electoral jargons to put us back to hell. Devil you have failed. Bookmark this let's see in six to seven weeks time

(1) Isiala Ngwa (62,355 registered voters)
PDP – 19,798
APGA – 6,853
(2) Osisioma Ngwa (88,867 registered voters)
PDP 42,111
APGA 1,017
(3) Obingwa (128,000 registered voters)
PDP – 82,240
APGA – 1,952

Ponponkon:
Only fools think that kangaroo judgement of the illiterate lagos zone judges will stand.
Ottila cannot win a free and fair election in Abia unless Ndi UkwaNgwa did not vote for their son Okezie. Satan has been using these minorities to torment Abia but we are not out to protect our votes. Enemies of progress like you cannot stop us by using outdated electoral jargons to put us back to hell. Devil you have failed. Bookmark this let's see in six to seven weeks time

(1) Isiala Ngwa (62,355 registered voters)
PDP – 19,798
APGA – 6,853
(2) Osisioma Ngwa (88,867 registered voters)
PDP 42,111
APGA 1,017
(3) Obingwa (128,000 registered voters)
PDP – 82,240
APGA – 1,952

I can't waste my time arguing with a failed SA like you

henchamb:

I can't waste my time arguing with a failed SA like you

Of course illiterate usually run away when presented with facts. Do your maths and tell me what over voting means using the figures above