A’Court reserves ruling in Kwara guber tussle

Posted by admin Kwara, State News Wednesday, December 21st, 2011

The Appeal Court is due to give its ruling latest by January 10, 2012 on the appeal ACN’s Mohammed Dele Belgore (SAN) filed, challenging the dismissal by the lower tribunal of his petition challenging PDP’s Abdulfattah Ahmed as the governor of Kwara State.

Counsel to all the parties in the case, including ACN, PDP and INEC, adopted and presented to their briefs after which the Presiding Justice, Abdulkadir Jega, reserved ruling to a date to be communicated to all the parties. The five-man panel is expected to give the judgment at a date not later than January 10 when the 60 days allowed for the appeal under the 2010 Electoral Act (as amended) will lapse.

Legal luminary and lead counsel to ACN, Ebun Sofunde (SAN), urged the panel to base its ruling on whether or not the appellant has established irregularities and non-compliance with the electoral act, which are substantial enough to cast doubt on the integrity of the election.

Counsel to the respondents – Yusuf Alli (SAN) for Ahmed; Adebayo Adelodun (SAN) for PDP; Oladele Ayodele (SAN) for INEC – all urged the panel to dismiss the appeal for lack of merit.
Sofunde said the appellant has submitted 13 issues for determination by the panel, including whether the lower tribunal was right in not acting on its own independent finding that there was discrepancy of 21,192 between the votes recorded on Form EC8As and the actual number of ballot papers used and whether the triobunal was right in not cancelling results in areas where voter register showed no sign of accreditation, which is a precondition for a vote to be valid.

The ACN had contended in its notice of appeal, dated November 25, that the tribunal erred in law in upholding the objections of PDP that ACN pleaded vague averments upon which no evidence could be led.

The ACN insists that the position of the law, backed by several authorities, is that a party that complains of vague or generic pleadings should request for further and better particulars, failing which he shall be taken to require no further particulars or direction and is stopped from complaining with any alleged vague or general nature of the pleadings.
ACN, which says its petition rests squarely on documentary evidence, also argued that the trial court acted strangely and against the law when it pronounced all the several thousands of documents tendered as inadmissible simply because the INEC officer did not sign them in long hand.

The party said the position of the court was strange because none of the respondents, including INEC and the PDP, challenged the authenticity of those documents, which the tribunal itself admitted have engraved signature of the officer, the date of certification and evidence that they are Certified True Copies (CTCs). At no time did INEC raise any issue with the documents.

-Sunwp_posts