THE Supreme Court, yesterday, explained why it has not accorded any probative value on reports from Card Reader Machines that were deployed by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, during the 2015 general elections. The apex court, yesterday, maintained that though the use of the Electronic Card Reader Machine for accreditation of voters was provided for in the Approved Guidelines and Regulations for the conduct of the 2015 general elections, it said the device was never “intended to supplant, displace or supersede” the Voters’ Register.

It observed that the issue had resulted to various Divisions of the Court of Appeal, giving divergent interpretations on election disputes that were brought before them by appellants. “True, indeed, the Card Reader Machine traces its paternity to the above Guidelines and Regulations. Regrettably, its probative pedestal in the vocabulary of electoral jurisprudence has generated conflicting interpretations from Their Lordships of the different Divisions of the Court of Appeal”, the Supreme Court noted.

A seven-man panel of Justices of the apex court, led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria, Justice Mahmud Mohammed, made the position of the court on the matter known, while adducing reasons why the election of Governor David Umahi of Ebonyi State was upheld. According to Justice Chima Centus Nweze who delivered the lead judgment, “With the intervention of this court, in its recent decision in Shinkafi v Yari (supra), it is hoped that practitioners and all other courts will begin to appreciate the position of the said Card Reader Machine, and the Reports generated therefrom, in election litigation.

“Prior to the authorisation of its use by the Guidelines and Manual (supra), the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended), in sections 49 (1) and (2), had ordained an analogue procedure for the accreditation process. As a corollary to the procedure outline above, section 53(2) of the said Act (that is, the Electoral Act) enshrined the consequences for the breach, negation or violation of the sanctity of the actual poll sequel to the consummation of the accreditation procedure in section 49 (supra).

“With the advantage of hindsight, INEC, pursuant to its powers under the said Electoral Act, authorised the deployment of the said Card Readers. “Even with the introduction of the said device, that is the Card Reader Machine, the National Assembly, in its wisdom, did not deem it necessary to bowdlerise the said analogue procedure in section 49 from the Act so that the Card Reader procedure would be the sole determinant of a valid accreditation process.

“Contrariwise, from the Corrigendum No 2, made on March 28, 2015, amending paragraph 13(b) of the Approved Guidelines, it stands to reason that the Card Reader was meant to supplement the Voter’ Register and was never designed or intended to supplant, displace or supersede it.

“Indeed, since the Guidelines and Manual, which authorised the use and deployment of the electronic Card Reader Machine, were made in exercise of the powers conferred by the Electoral Act, the said Card Reader cannot, logically, depose or dethrone the Voters’ Register whose judicial roots are, firmly, embedded or entrenched in the selfsame Electoral Act from which it )the Voters’ Register). Directly, derives its sustenance and currency.

“Thus, any attempt to invest it (the Card Reader Machine procedure) with such overreaching pre-eminence or superiority over the Voters’ Register is like converting an auxiliary procedure- into the dominant procedure- of proof, that is, proof of accreditation.

“This is a logical impossibility. Indeed, only recently, this court in Shinkafi vs Yari, confirmed the position that the Card Reader Machine has not supplanted the statement of results in appropriate forms; hence, the appellant still had the obligation to prove petition relating to accreditation of voters and over-voting as enunciated in several decisions of this court”, Justice Nweze added.

More so, using the Ebonyi state gubernatorial dispute as an instance, the apex court panel noted that the Head of Unit, ICT Data Management at INEC headquarters, who testified as the PW-8 before the tribunal, explained that the Card Reader performed two roles, namely, the verification of the Permanent Voters Card, PVC, and the authentication of fingerprint. It observed that the witness, who generated a Card Reader Machines Report for Ebonyi State Governorship Election, had admitted that it was not a complete report covering all the details of Polling Units in the state as some Polling Units were not uploaded and thus not included in the report.

The witness said the report she tendered before the tribunal represented data that were successfully uploaded before the chairman of INEC gave an instruction for the server to be shut down. According to the Supreme Court, “Her trenchant responses, clearly, demonstrate that the Card Reader Machine Reports were neither inviolable nor sacrosanct as a host of intervening mischievous human variables could impinge on their reliability.

“Against the background of the testimonies of PW8, it is, actually, surprising, that learned counsel to the appellant chose not to utilise the Voter’ Register, to show the entire gamut of the voters, but rather built his case on what, in the unanswerable words of the lower court was an exhibit that was not accurate, sufficient and comprehensive enough to be relied upon in proof of the allegation of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, 2010, as amended.

“That is to say that the appellant (as Petitioner) failed to weave his case on the Voters ‘Registers and a fortiori did not produce such registers because if he had produced them, their contents would have been unfavourable to the allegations he made in the petition and hence his decision to withhold them.

“Thus, the appellant laboured in vain in the spirited attempt he made before this court to have the findings of the lower court vacated. He was, indeed, attempting the impossible given the anaemic evidence he adduced. In my view, the lower court, rightly, affirmed the findings of the trial tribunal in this regard”. Besides, the apex court held that the appellant, Edward Nkwegu Okereke, who was the candidate of the Labour Party during the April 11, 2015, governorship election in Ebonyi state, could not lay credible evidence to support his case against governor Umahi of the Peoples Democratic Party.

The court said the case of the petitioner failed owing to “irreparable damage of the testimony of witnesses” that testified for him at the lower tribunal, who it said were “thoroughly discredited in cross-examination”. It will be recalled that though the Supreme Court dismissed Okereke’s appeal on January 27, it however reserved its reasons for doing so till yesterday.

Aside the CJN, other members of the apex court panel that also agreed with the lead judgment were Justices Ibrahim Tanko Muhammad, Kumai Bayang Aka’ahs, Kudirat Kekere-Ekun, John Inyang Okoro and Amiru Sanusi.

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Thank you all.

The supreme authority on judicial matters has spoken.
The justices used lots of flowery language and legalese lingo so I'll just break it down or some aspects down.

The quote below captures the essence of the judgement:
"Thus, any attempt to invest it (the Card Reader Machine procedure) with such overreaching pre-eminence or superiority over the Voters’ Register is like converting an auxiliary procedure- into the dominant procedure- of proof, that is, proof of accreditation".

Summary pls

JESUSBOIY:
Summary pls

The voters register is considered more important than the card readers

All the gain made by JEGA in the last election has be rendered useless by the supreme Court

I am disappointed in the reason as it would now be very easy for any government in power to rig elections

PDP should condemn this in its totally cos the party would suffer cos of this judgement

Psalm18:


The voters register is considered more important than the card readers

Kkk

Supreme court has a mandate.To interpret the laws inact by our law makers.Card reader is not part of the electoral act thus can't replace voters register period.

I am highly disappointed by the reason for the blanket judgements of the supreme court. Is either they are corrupt or they are puppet on a string, cos their reason does not hold water, two step forward three steps backwards, Mr president now is the time to act or we are doomed in this country.

falake in kogi had no case with these new development

wen d apex court in our land cannot find any grounds whatsoever to give us OBVIOUS justice but can rain english till 2mrw to rationalize injustice, den judiciary here is not hope to anybody. The truth is As long as injustice subsists in d name of technicalities, all effort of government towards providing security and social stability will b stillborn. with the recent events, it is obvious that the state of our judiciary is worse than that of our economy... It's time something is done abt it.

Summary of the supreme court assertion.

1) Since card reader is not recognized under the law as the only and authentic voters register, you cant discard manual accreditation.

2) In the case of Ebonyi case as testified by the data management of INEC that some data from the card reader machine could not be uploaded, it can't be used to judge number of accredited voters or number of eligible voters.

In a nutshell JEGA card reader was a waste of time and money bcuz it could not stop or correct rigging.

I agree with this bcuz u cant tell me the card reader can't recognize my finger whereas my name is on the permanent voters register. When and only if the card reader device becomes full-proof devoid of errors can it be suplanted or replaced the paper voters register.

This implication of this decision can only be reversed by legislation. Doubtless, the card reader is a veritable anti-dote to election rigging and the integrity of our elections can be guaranteed by its adoption. It's imperative to amend the Electoral Act to give the card reader prominence over the voters' register.

Well the position of the Supreme Court is logical. You cannot tell a man whose name is duly captured on the voter's register that he cannot cast his vote because the card reader failed to scan his finger print.

Until such a time when we have a legislation supporting electronic voting, the manual voters' register will continue to take preeminence.

That is very sad to note that by this ruling, all the technological gains of the last elections have been pooh poohed and we are back right where we started.

One can only pray that one of the legacies of this government will be the institution of a legislation backing the introduction of electronic voting otherwise, the next elections will be bloody.

Hmmmmmmm


Thank God this judgement is coming in the era of an APC-controlled central government.

wat this simply means is that inec would hae to use both manual means and electronic means in the next election