THE people of Ogbaru federal constituency in Anambra State have protested recent judgment delivered by Anambra State National and State Assemblies Election Petition Tribunal which upturned election of Afam Ogene and awarded it to Mr. Chukwuka Onyema, describing the development as judicial robbery.
In a protest by Mr. Peter Okala and Evangelist Jeremiah Elezua, chairman and secretary of Ogbaru Stakeholders Forum respectively, the people claimed that based on facts available, the person awarded the seat was never a member of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and should, therefore, not have been declared winner on the platform of the party.
Onyema had petitioned against the victory of Ogene, who contested the election on the platform of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, and the tribunal sitting in Awka dismissed the petition.
However, the Court of Appeal ordered the retrial and the second tribunal gave it to Onyema.
But faulting the ruling, the Ogbaru stakeholders said Onyema was never and still was not the PDP candidate in the said election, adding that it was for that reason that he joined PDP as 2nd respondent in his petition.
They said: “The Election Petition Tribunal is not a place to determine pre-election issue like candidature of political parties.
“Instructively, till date, Onyema is still locked in litigation with Sunday Nwafili, a case he instituted, over who is the rightful PDP candidate in the election.
“All Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, documents used in the conduct of the said election have the petitioner listed as candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, A CN. These include Certified True Copies, CTC, of INEC’s final list of candidates and Form EC8E (i) used for declaration of result, amongst others.
“At the conclusion of pre-session, the tribunal formulated only a single issue for determination and that was whether INEC was right in cancelling the result of the controversial Ogwu Ikpele Ward”.
“The National Assembly election held on April 9th, 2011 was cancelled by INEC in Ogwu Ikpele ward due to a multiplicity of reasons, including physical attack on the Supervisory Presiding Officer (SPO), non-collation of results into Forms EC8B (i) and EC8C (i)-ward and local government collation forms –as well as hijack of electoral materials.
“Curiously, the tribunal, in its judgment, chose to side with the petitioner’s claim that there was no breach of peace, no natural disaster or reported incident of over voting, while discountenancing the written depositions and oral evidence of the electoral officer, returning officer, and a witness and voter from Ogwu Ikpele, which clearly indicated that there was violence.
“Besides the facts that the petitioner did not call a single witness to collaborate his position on this issue and others arising from the petition, the tribunal also conveniently left out the Police report on the conduct of April National Assembly general election in Anambra State on 9th April 2011” which on page 8 of the report, stated that there was ‘Missing Result’.
According to the report, “There was a disagreement over the result at Ogwu Ikpele ward emanating from allegation of inflated result. The presiding officer who came late due to breakdown of her vehicle was under pressure to announce the result. There was confusion, and in the bid to escape, she missed the result.
“We regret that the best the tribunal did to this vital piece of information was to dismiss it as documentary hearsay.
“Despite this, the tribunal proceeded to accept, whole-heartedly, the booth results of the April 9, 2011 election in Ogwu Ikpele (with their clear alterations), while throwing aside the winner’s own, with the same serial numbers, on the excuse that they are ‘ineligible’.
“A further look at the booth result tendered by the petitioner showed that in addition to evidence of having been tampered with, three of them bore serial Nos: 005948, 005950, and005950- which are not in sync with those used for the Ogwu Ikpele election, which had its first digits as 1122.”
The stakeholders pleaded with the relevant authorities to ensure that justice was done in the matter. (vanguard)
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