Olusola Fabiyi and Ihuoma Chiedozie

The Presidential Election Tribunal on Tuesday dismissed an application filed by the Congress for Progressive Change asking the panel to enter judgment in its favour.



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The petitioner has alleged that the Independent National Electoral Commission failed to allow it access to the biometric materials as ordered by the court.

The CPC is challenging the victory of President Goodluck Jonathan in the April poll, while INEC and People's Democratic Party are the defendants.

Delivering the ruling, Justice Mohammed Garba said the petitioner interpreted the order of the court wrongly.

"The order that we made is just to allow the petitioner see, evaluate the materials in the premises of the commission; it was not a fiat for the petitioner to take them away," he said.

But the CPC faulted the position of the panel that the order to inspect the election materials precluded making copies of same for the purpose of reinforcing the petition of the party.

The CPC said in a statement by its National Publicity Secretary, Mr. Rotimi Fashakin, that the decision of the reconstituted election panel, presided by Justice Muhammed Garba, did not come to it as a surprise.

The tribunal had earlier dismissed the application filed by the CPC, asking it to enter judgment in its favour on the refusal of the INEC to give the party unfettered access to the election materials in its custody, based on the unequivocal order of the same court on May 24, 2011.

Commenting on the ruling, the party said, "Indeed, it is a sad day in the dispensation of Justice in the land. Undoubtedly, this ruling was not unexpected because a plot of the trajectory of the demeanour of the terrestrial powers in the land, in recent times, showed the nauseous compromises in the nation's judiciary"

It said the ruling was at variance with the order of the same court on May 24.

The party added, "Undoubtedly, today's ruling has further exacerbated the feelings of anguish and angst from the citizenry occasioned by the unprecedented vitiation of the rule of Law, ably spearheaded by the top echelon of the nation's judiciary in recent times. The obviously convoluted ruling ominously left many questions unanswered." http://odili.net/news/source/2011/sep/7/828.html