Court clarifies judgment on polls time-table

Mr. Justice Ibrahim Auta of an Abuja Federal High Court yesterday cleared the air on his last Thursday’s decision on the order of election.

The judge said he did not void the election time-table prepared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before the National Assembly amended the Electoral Act last year.

Following the amendment of the law, the National Assembly put the presidential election before the governorship poll.

A  statement by the Deputy Chief Registrar,  Emmanuel Gakko said Justice Auta did not invalidate INEC time-table.

The clarification is on the purported judgment of the court in a suit filed by the Labour Party (LP) which declared the National Assembly amendment of Section 25 of the Act as ‘”illegal, unconstitutional, null and void”.

The judge was reported to have declared that the National Assembly had no powers to infringe upon INEC’s powers to fix dates for elections.

Part of the statement reads: “Our attention has been drawn to newspaper reports alleging that His Lordship, the Honorable Justice Ibrahim Auta had on Thursday 3rd March 2011 declared INEC’s timetable for the holding of the April 2011 elections, illegal, unconstitutional, void and of no effect whatsoever.

“For the avoidance of doubt, in order to put the record straight and to remove the confusion set in public places as a result of the said publication, created by the wrong interpretation and reporting of His Lordship’s Ruling of 3/3/2011, we state unequivocally that the content and import of His Lordship’s Order of3/3/2011 as follows:

*That Section 25(1) of the Electoral Act, in so far as it repeals the provisions of Sections 76(1), 116(1), 132(1) and 178(1) of the 1999 Constitution is inoperative and void for duplication, inconsistent and lacking legislative competency.