BY GABRIEL PRINCEWILL
The Rivers State Election tribunal in Nigeria, West Africa, has nullified the elections that placed Wike as the winner of the last governmental elections, eye of media have learnt today. After reviewing the 56 witnesses called in, the presiding judge concluded that Mr.Wike’s witnesses dodged questions under cross examination and refused to answer questions on documents they were confronted with by the petitioners. The Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) had argued that the petitioners failed to prove their case polling unit by polling unit in line with Supreme Court earlier decisions.
The sitting governor, Nyesom Wike- former Minister of Information, an law graduate- will be appealing the judgement. Counsel representing him expressed shock that in less than 24 hours after lawyers on all sides submitted nine written addresses and documents, the tribunal sent notice that judgment would be delivered on Saturday, October 24.
Uche said that the tribunal was aware the supreme court judgment on the jurisdiction of the tribunal outside of Rivers state would be delivered on Tuesday, adding that the tribunal had 7 days to deliver its judgment, wondering why it chose to do so in less than two days
DIRECTIVE
According to the tribunal, presiding officers called by the respondents as witnesses claimed to have resorted to manual accreditation because the card reader failed. They said the were not aware of the INEC’s directive to postpone the poll under such circumstances. Well, ignorance has never been a tenable excuse for woeful failures. Card readers . The petitioner, Mr. Peterside, presented the unarguable fact that the card reader machine was made mandatory by INEC’s guideline and has the backing of the Electoral Act, whilst the sitting governor, Mr.Wike argued that none usage of card readers cannot be grounds for nullification of election
The INEC said that the petitioners failed to prove their case polling unit by polling unit in line with Supreme Court earlier decisions, and that evidence given by witnesses was based on hearsay. In the course of the dramatic court case over rivers state rich oil region, the petitioners alleged that the elections had been marred by the intimidation of voters, none availability of result sheets, snatching of electoral materials, none collation of results at wards and LG levels- all of which were adjudged credible and reliable by the Tribunal who affirmed the basis of the introduction of card readers by the INEC to ensure credibility and transparency
”We don’t see any conflict between the introduction of card readers and the provisions of the Electoral Act”, the tribunal states. A simple glance of the results as shown in Exhibit A10 showed the election not to have been conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act, according to the tribunal. Appalling failings that included an INEC witness claiming not to have had knowledge about the Directive by the Commission on the exclusive use of card readers for accreditation, was as ridiculous as the shambolic process in which the election itself was conducted.
Directions by the INEC for elections to be postponed until the next day in the event of the failure of card reader was ignored and instead illegally substituted for manual accreditation, contrary to procedural rules. The PDP defence was further irreversibly discredited when the tribunal concluded that the characters of voters called by Mr. Wike were impugned under cross-examination, given their level of evasiveness under cross-examination
”We are in agreement that the evidence of the witnesses of Wike and INEC is incredible and unreliable”, the Tribunal stated, as they concluded that ”we are satisfied that the petitioners have proved their case. The conclusion of the hearing means that a fresh election must be conducted within 90 days, giving the ruling party, who were the under dogs then, a fresh shout at victory. The PDP have historically governed the Rivers State region since 1999, and it will be the first time they would loose their hold in the State in the event they lose the fresh elections in the State.