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S’Court Orders Fresh
Trial of Petition Against Yar’Adua |
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From Funso Muraina in Abuja, 03.28.2009
Thisday |
2007 Presidential Election
Barely four months after the Supreme Court affirmed
the election of President Umaru Yar’Adua, a
relatively unknown party has emerged as a fresh
hurdle for his mandate.
The Supreme Court yesterday ordered the President of
the Court of Appeal to constitute a fresh panel to
hear the presidential election petition filed by the
Hope Democratic Party (HDP) challenging the April
2007 election which returned Yar’Adua and the Vice
President Goodluck Jonathan as the winners.
It also set aside the decision of the Court of
Appeal, Abuja Division, which sat as the
Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal that had on
August 20th, 2007 struck out HDP’s petition for
being incompetent.
The decision of the apex court followed an appeal
filed by the political party and its presidential
candidate, Ambrose Owuru against the ruling of the
lower court.
Delivering the lead judgment prepared by Justice
Walter Onnoghen, Justice Francis Tabai said: “I must
confess that the petition is not well or elegantly
drafted particularly as it did not separately state
the grounds for presenting the petition under
separate heads or subheads.
“But it is clear from the paragraphs of the petition
that it contains a ground recognised by the relevant
section of the Electoral Act 2006, particularly
section 145(1) (b) which states that the election
was invalid by reason of corrupt practices or
non-compliance with the provisions of this Act.”
Justice Onnoghen maintained that the fact on which
the ground of non-compliance with the provisions of
the Electoral Act 2006 was based was also pleaded.
He said: “In the circumstance, I am of the view that
the lower court was in error when it held that the
petition was not based on any ground known to law
and did not disclose any cause of action.”
He further held that the omission of ‘National’ in
the nomenclature of the Independent National
Electoral Commission (INEC) by the petitioner was an
error which ought not to have been used by the lower
court as a reason for striking out the petition,
because “out of the five documents filed at the
registry of the lower court as required by statute,
the error occurred in only one document.”
Justice Onnoghen said the letter ‘S ’ which was not
added by the petitioner in his petition to make it
Peoples Democratic Party and the letter ‘N’ which
was added to Nigeria, in Nigeria Police Force were
too trivial an error to be considered.
The apex court said election petitions were “sui
generis and they deal with political rights and
obligations of the people, particularly those who
consider their rights injured by the electoral
process should be given avenue to ventilate their
grievances.”
The court, however, held that Iwu be struck out from
the petition on the grounds that he ought not to be
sued in his personal capacity since he acted in his
capacity as the INEC chairman during the election.
Other Justices on the panel - Justice Dahiru
Musdapher, Justice George Oguntade, Justice Ikech
Francis Ogbuagu, Justice Francis Tabai, Justice
Christopher Chukwua-Eneh and Justice Muha-mmad
Coomassie - agreed with the lead judgment
HDP had filed the petition against INEC Chair-man
Maurice Iwu, Yar'Adua and the Nigeria Police Force,
on the grounds that the ballot papers used in the
conduct of the April 21, 2007 presidential election
were not bounded in booklet form.
The appellant, who alleged that the election was
marred with irregularities, also contended that the
ballot papers were not serialised, hence the
Electoral Act of 2006 was not followed in the
conduct of the election.
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