*Mimiko: Let’s bury the hatchet
*Akeredolu, Oke: We’ll pursue matter to Supreme Court
BY DAYO JOHNSON
AFTER 178 days of legal gymnastics, the three-member Election Petition Tribunal, led by Justice Andovar Kaka ‘an which sat over the October 20, 2012 governorship election in Ondo State dismissed the 190 paragraph and 403 pages petition of the Action Congress of Nigeria, A C N, candidate, Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN), as well as the 1,480 paragraphs statement on oath and 248 page petition of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Chief Olusola Oke, likening their failure to prove their matter convincingly to a game of soccer in which the players had no goal to show for their 90 minutes of play.
It therefore went ahead to uphold the victory of Dr Olusegun Mimiko as the governor-elect of the state, saying the petitions “lack merit and is devoid of ingredients the petitioners sought to establish.”
”It is clear that the petitioners relied on corrupt practices to push the cases but section 131 (1) of the Evidence Act stipulates that election should not be cancelled if it is not substantially non-compliant with the relevant law.
”Like soccer, it must show goals scored with figures and the petitioner must not only assert but show evidence that the non-compliance, if proved substantially, affected the results and the outcome of the poll.”
To political analysts who attended the proceedings, the verdict was expected as the petitions filed by the four political parties that participated in the election against the victory of the Labour Party candidate were ”dead on arrival”. The tribunal wasted no time in throwing away sizeable number of paragraphs in the petitions filed by the parties, hinging its decision on the fact that they were vague, non- joining of persons alleged of criminality during the said election and that many of the paragraphs were mere hearsay. But these were contested by the parties in the Court of Appeal but many of the decisions of the tribunal were upheld while few were returned.
Analysis of the post-election showed that two of the major parties allegedly sponsored the petitions of two other parties.
While the A C N surreptitiously sponsored the Accord Party, the PDP helped the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) in instituting a petition against the victory of Mimiko.
However, the thinking of the two major parties, according to findings from their leaders, was that since the election was adjudged peaceful and it became difficult to rubbish it, they decided to ride on the back of the two weaker parties and push for the cancellation of the election on technicalities. But it did not work out.
The Accord Party, in its petition, claimed that INEC omitted its log on the ballot paper used for the governorship poll contrary to the 2010 Electoral Act.
Its candidate in the election, Olawale Ojo, insisted that INEC sent three of its officials to monitor its primary but still excluded his name from the list of contestants. It therefore prayed the tribunal to order INEC to conduct fresh poll that would allow him to participate.
However, the petition could not fly when the National Secretariat of the Accord Party told the tribunal that the party fielded no candidate for the election and that the said candidate was on his own. The petition was subsequently thrown into the bin can.
This was a big minus for the A C N which thought that if its candidate’s petition failed, that of the Accord Party could scale through and the tribunal will order a re-run.
From the moment the petition was thrown out and its appeal suffered same fate, the enthusiasm in the party members nosedived and it was clear where the pendulum will swing when the chips are down. The absence of notable leaders of the two parties in the court on the day of judgement showed that they had inkling that their 90 minutes of play in the court recoded no goal.
In the case of the CPC petition, the tribunal struck it out at the pre-hearing stage for lack of merit coupled with the position of the party disowning the petition before the tribunal. A breather came when the Court of Appeal ruled that the tribunal should try the petition on its merit but the candidate, Soji Ehinlanwo, after the Court of Appeal ruling, petitioned the NJC, asking that the three-member tribunal should be disqualified from hearing his petition. The matter died there.
File photo: Chief Judge of Ondo State, Justice Sehinde Kumuyi; Ondo State Governor Olusegun Mimiko; and his wife; Oluwakemi, during the swearing-in of Mimiko as the state governor in Akure on Sunday.
The straw that the ACN and PDP held to gave way after the appeal failed to rule in their favour and, by the time the tribunal went into full hearing of the petitions, it became crystal clear that they were ill-prepared for the matter. The witnesses they called rather than helping their cases threw spanner into the petitions.
Before this, the candidate of the A C N, Akeredolu, had prayed for the nullification of the election on the basis that Mimiko was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes, that the election was invalid by reason of corrupt practices and or non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act and other electoral frauds.
The candidate of the PDP, Oke, averred that the Mimiko was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the election just as he alleged that the election in most polling units and wards in 15 out of 18 local government areas of the state.
In his reply to the petitions of the candidates of the A C N and PDP, Mimiko declared that the candidates were just wasting their time and prayed the tribunal to throw out the cases for being frivolous, vexatious, patent abuse of court process as well as lacking in merit and substance.
Mimiko said he would be relying on Forms EC8A-D, ballot papers and voters registers used during the poll, reports of local and international independent observers, and reports of local and international media on the conduct of the election as well as video clips and photographs.
While delivering its verdict on the two petitions that scaled through during the proceedings, Justice Kaka, an came hard on the 41 witnesses called by the ACN candidate and the 45 by the PDP describing them as “unreliable liars.”
The Chairman of the tribunal said that, after a thorough perusal of the arguments of the petitioners and the cross examinations by the respondents, they”failed woefully to prove that the governorship election of October 20 was not in compliance with the Electoral Act”.
He added that the witnesses gave evidences on mere hearsay and were never present at any of the polling booths where they wanted the tribunal to believe they acted as the party agents Justice Kaka’ an said Akeredolu’s petition failed to prove beyond reasonable doubt the allegations of corrupt practices and non-compliance with the Electoral Act.
On the petition of the PDP and its candidate, Oke, the tribunal said that he failed to proof that the election was not conducted in compliance with the Electoral Act and that he failed to show to the tribunal why he should be declared as the winner of the election as contained in his petition.
The two candidates of the A C N and PDP kicked against the verdict and announced their intention to challenge it to the Supreme Court.
Oke, who was the first to react, said the judgment “constitutes a brazen defeat of the expectations of the people of Ondo State who had desired light after four years of total darkness.”
The A C N, in a statement by its Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Agbede, said the party “”received with shock the ruling.”
”The ruling of the tribunal, no doubt, has put the judiciary on trial in the open court of the people who relied heavily on the courts to dispense justice without fear or favour,” he added.
“We are however consoled by the fact that this is just the first leg in the struggle to get justice for the people of Ondo State and free them from the serial chain of poverty which the LP government has sentenced them to.”
However Mimiko, while addressing party faithful who trooped to the Government House, Akure to celebrate the verdict, called on “opposition party members to partner with us in meeting the expectations of our people.”
With the combative stance of the two “wounded footballers” that they will pursue the matter to the Supreme Court, it is not yet party time for the Iroko of Ondo politics and his party members across the state.
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