OSUN ELECTION PETITION TRIBUNAL UPDATE: Omisore’s Petition is hopeless- Chief Olujinmi. Osun Governorship Election Tribunal 2014 The Justice Kpejime led election petition Tribunal today heard the submission of counsel on their written addresses. Below is the summary of the submission made by Chief Akin Olujinmi SAN in support of the dismissal of the Petition for lacking in merit. Submit that the court should uphold the several objections raised to the admissibility of documents tendered by the petitioners particularly the alleged CTC of electoral materials. Refers to paragraph 2.3, 2.4, 2.5 and 2.6 of the 1st Respondent written address. · Submit that the petitioners have not raised contrary contention that the purported certification of those documents did not satisfy the requirement of S.104 (1) Evidence Act. With respect to the several duplicate of result sheet tendered through PW1 and original ballot papers tendered through PW 38, submit in addition to the submission made in the course of proceeding refer to Paragraphs 5, 6, 7,8,9 and 10 of 1st Respondent reply to Petitioners’ final address. · Submit that the net effect of rejection of these documents objected to is that the petition becomes bare as there are no document to support it. Further submit that oral evidence of the witnesses alone cannot sustain the petition and the petition is therefore liable to be dismissed summarily. Issue 1 · Submit that the petitioners appear not to be contesting that their reply is filed out of time with the consequence that they also did not file application for pre- hearing. · The heavy reliance placed by the Petitioners on the case of Saeed v. Yakowa is misplaced. See paragraph 16 of the 1st Respondent’s reply to the Petitioners final address. · Submit further that the decision of the Supreme Court in Okechuku v. INEC clearly established the principle that under the rules of computation of time in election petition, the day of the event to which an act is required to be done is inclusive to determine whether the act required as been done within time or otherwise. · Submit that the attempt by the petitioners to restrict the case to interpretation of Supreme Court Practice Direction offends the well known principle of ratio decidendi. Issue 2 · Submit that the petitioners have abandoned their pleadings in majority of the wards and polling units, specifically the petitioners did not call evidence in 116 of 142 wards and 709 out 939 polling units in respect of which they made allegation. · Submit that this contention have been conceded by the Petitioners by not countering it in their address. Rather, the strange submission by the petitioners that they are only obliged to prove their case randomly has no basis in Nigerian Law. · Submit that, assuming without conceding, that the Petitioners even established cases of non- compliance in all the 914 polling units for which the Petitioners tendered Forms EC8A, the 1st Respondent will still win the election having satisfied the requirement of S. 179(1) of the Constitution. Submit that the net effect of this submission which was not countered by the petitioners is that the petition cannot be sustained and ought to be dismissed in view of S. 139(1) of the Electoral Act and the Authorities cited in paragraph 4.2.4 of the 1st Respondent’s final address. · Also submit that that testimony of PW1- PW43 clearly evaluated in the 1st Respondent’s final address showed that their evidence are not reliable and were thoroughly discredited under cross-examination and the Petitioners have conceded this by not bothering to evaluate the evidence of their witnesses. · Submit that as regards PW15 and PW 38 we specifically refer to paragraphs 4.2.38 to 4.2.53 and the Petitioners did not counter or respond to the contention of the 1st Respondent that: · PW 15 and PW 38 are not experts · That the nature of evidence they gave does not qualify as expert evidence · That the evidence they gave are not pleaded · That they acted outside the scope of the petition · That available documents before the tribunal contradicted their report and evidence thereby rendering their testimony unreliable and thoroughly discredited · They admitted errors and false entries in their evidence under cross-examination. · Submit that the specific allegations upon which the grounds of the petition were predicated are criminal in nature and the Petitioners have failed to prove the allegations beyond reasonable doubt and also they have failed to prove the liability of the 1st and 2nd respondents in respect of the allegation beyond reasonable doubt as required by law. · Also submit that the specific allegations of sponsorship of on air advertisement of campaign on election day, intimidation, molestation and harassment, over- voting, multiple voting and voting by proxy, lack of proper accreditation, voting by ineligible persons and disenfranchisement of eligible voters, arbitrary allocation of votes, irreconcilable entries, discrepancy and mutilation of result, lack of proper accounting of ballot papers, campaign and inducement of voters and non- stamping of Forms EC8A as well as other sundry allegation like multiple registration were not established by the Petitioners. · Submit that the kind of proof required to establish this allegation goes beyond the ipse dixit of witnesses even if the witnesses were to be believed. Judicial decision have established the kind of prove required to establish these allegations. · Furthermore, the Petitioners have conceded to the abandonment of these allegations because they have failed to touch on them in their written address. · On the Petitioners argument on the non- creation of voting points which took enormous space in their written address, we submit that their contention about non- creation of voting points goes to no issue as there is no such pleadings in the petition. See paragraph 36e on page 16 of the Petition. · It is submitted that there is no legal basis for the submission in paragraph 3.13 of the Petitioners final address that non-creation of voting points, even if established, which is not conceded, amounts to substantial non-compliance with the provisions of “relevant sections of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended) and the Manual for Election Officials 2014”. And that was why the Petitioners could not cite any section of the Electoral Act or paragraph of the Manual whereby the non-creation of voting point is made mandatory and declared as substantial non- compliance. · Further submit that assuming without conceding that the non- creation of voting point amounts to non-compliance with the election, as a matter of law, the Petitioners must adduce credible evidence, which they failed to do, on how the alleged non-creation of voting points have substantially affected the conduct of the elections and how the Petitioners have suffered a disadvantage or that they were disfavoured: See Abubakar v Yar’adua [2008] 19 NWLR (pt 1120) 1 at pages 148 to 149. · The Petitioners have not shown the specific exhibits upon which the submission in paragraphs 3.18, 3.19 and the 2 tables of the Petitioners final address were purportedly concocted. · Submit that the Petitioners have not satisfied the provision of Section 179(2) as to the requirements of the Constitution for someone to be declared as Governor. · Submit that the tables inserted after Paragraph 3.18 of the Petitioners final address did not come close to the constitutional requirement in that there is no way the Tribunal can determine the votes of the parties on a local government by local government basis with a view to determining that the Petitioners have met the requirements under the constitution. It was not even shown how the so-called table came about – that is which units were severed and which were not from the report of PW15. · With these reasons and some other reasons fully canvassed in our written address, we urge your Lordship to dismiss this petition for lacking in merit with substantial cost.
Posted on: Fri, 23 Jan 2015 20:07:44 +0000
Trending Topics
© 2015