… Faults Military Involvement In Elections
SAN FRANCISCO, February 16, (THEWILL) – The victory of Governor Ayodele Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Ekiti state governorship election held on June 21, 2014 has been upheld by the Appeal Court sitting in Abuja.
The appellate court, which upheld the judgment of the election tribunal which had earlier dismissed the petition written by the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenging Fayose’s victory, upheld Fayose’s victory on Monday.
The court however declared that it was wrong for the military to be involved in elections as was done in the Ekiti election as it maintained that by the provisions of the law, the military had no role to play in electoral process . It declared that whoever had deployed the military to Ekiti for the elections had breached the law.
APC had approached the appellate court to challenge the decision of the Ekiti Election tribunal which had earlier upheld Fayose’s election.
APC submitted that the tribunal erred when it dismissed the ground challenging the forgery of certificate by Fayose just as it also challenged the decision of the tribunal which struck out the Chief of Army Staff and the Nigerian Army as parties in the petition.
APC challenged the tribunal’s decision which denied jurisdiction to pronounce whether the Army has a role to play in an election or not.
But in a two-hour judgement delivered by a full panel of the Court of Appeal headed by Justice Abdul Aboki, the court held that the appellants did not prove beyond reasonable doubt that the certificate of the respondent issued by the Polytechnic Ibadan was forged.
Noting that the issuing institution – Polytechnic Ibadan – had forwarded a letter stating that the certificate in contention was issued by it, the court further noted that the appellants failed to provide an evidence before the court to show that the certificate was forged.
The court therefore dismissed the ground of appeal.
On the issue of striking out the names of Chief of Army Staff and Nigerian Army from the petition by the tribunal, the court held that the tribunal was right as such office and establishment were not recognised under law to be involved in electoral process.
Noting that the struck out parties were not necessary parties and as such their non joinder in the tribunal would not produce adverse effect on the appellant,the court also held that the military as far as the election was concerned could be categorised as agents of INEC.
The court however upheld the decision of the tribunal, striking out the names of the Chief of Army Staff and Nigerian Army as parties in the petition.
It also did not object to the decision of the tribunal refusing jurisdiction to determine whether the military had a role to play in an electoral process.
“We have looked carefully into this appeal, no merit in the appeal and it is hereby dismissed. The judgement of the Tribunal delivered on December 19, 2014 succeeds,” the court held.
In the cross appeal, brought by PDP and Fayose on whether APC could file a petition before the tribunal without its governorship candidate, the court held in the affirmative.
Justice Aboki held that the candidate was not a necessary party in the petition on ground that it was the party that sponsored a candidate.
Also on whether an impeachment could qualify as a ground for disqualification in an election, the court held that there was no way an impeachment could constitute a ground for disqualification.
It would be recalled that the tribunal in dismissing APC’s petition on December 19, 2013 had held that the witnesses paraded by the petitioner were unable to provide concrete evidence to support the claims of corrupt practices at the polling units and that their testimonies did not support claims that the election did not comply substantially with the provisions of the Electoral Act.
