INEC moves to halt 5 govs’ tenure elongation •I didn’t stop sequence of elections -Justice Auta

Posted by admin Elections 2011, Governors Wednesday, March 9th, 2011

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Wednesday, prayed a Federal High Court in Abuja to stop

the execution of the judgment that extended the tenure of five governors to 2012.

In a motion for stay filed by the counsel for the electoral body, Carol Ajie, INEC asked the court for an interim order stopping the governors from benefitting from the judgment until its appeal challenging the judgment before the Court of Appeal is disposed of.

Ajie noted that the application was brought under Order 3 Rule of the Sheriffs and Civil Process Act, Judgments (Enforcement) Rules Cap. S6, Vol.14 Laws of the Federation, 2004 as well as Order 32 Rules 1, 4(1) and 5 of the Federal High Court (Civil Procedure) Rules, 2009.

The application was supported with a seven-paragraph affidavit deposed to by Mr Kennedy Ajogi, a litigation clerk in her chambers.

While asking the judge to grant a stay, she said that an appeal had already been filed against the judgment and that the appeal raised substantial issues of law which might be resolved in favour of the appellant (INEC).

According to her, the stay was necessary to preserve the res and stop it from annihilation, destruction or damage, adding that a greater hardship would be caused if the application was refused, while the governors would lose nothing if granted.

She further told the court that if the application was refused, any decision arrived at by the Court of Appeal would have been rendered nugatory, adding that the electoral body would find itself in an awkward position if the appeal was decided in its favour, since the time for holding election in the affected states would have passed before the appeal would be decided.

She asked the court to take notice of the fact that some of the elections were nullified on account of malpractices and irregularities, adding that to allow the governors to stay beyond May 29, would make them to benefit from the wrongs.

“There are special and exceptional reasons why suspension of the judgment ought to be granted in this case, the appellant/applicant is a statutory body charged with the responsibility of regulating, scheduling and conducting elections into the offices occupied by the respondents among others and should not be stopped from doing its statutory work,” she said.

Nevertheless, she admitted that the judge had a discretionary power on whether to grant a stay of execution of judgment or not.

The commission asked the court to hold that the tenure of the governors would come to an end on May, 29, 2011.

The commission had further argued that the trial judge, Justice Adamu Bello, erred in law in holding that the suit by the governors was competent when he lacked the jurisdiction to entertain their claim.
It also submitted that the judgment was against the weight of evidence and inconsistent with decisions of the appellate courts in respect of the issues canvassed.

Faulting the judge for relying on the cases of Obi V INEC and Ladoja V INEC, the appellant claimed said “the principle enunciated in the cases of OBI vs. INEC and LADOJA vs. INEC & 2 ORS did not support the erroneous conclusion reached by the judge that the rerun tenure for the governors of the five states would start afresh under Section 180(2) of the 1999 Constitution.”

INEC also said the judge misdirected himself in law, when he said that the taking of the oath of allegiance and oath of office, twice in each case, in which the governors had indulged, was the basis for calculating the four-year term, and that a nullification of the previous election of the governors also nullified their previous oaths.

In his judgment in the consolidated suits filed by the five governors, Justice Bello held that the tenure of the governors legally started in 2008 when they took fresh oath of office and allegiance, following the nullification of their April 14, 2007 elections by the courts.

The court held that since the 2007 elections were nullified and set aside by competent courts, the oath of office and allegiance subscribed to by the five governors had all been nullified and set aside along with the elections.

According to Justice Bello, the 2007 elections being used by INEC to determine the tenure of the governors did not exist in the eyes of the law, having been legally declared null and void by competent courts of law.

Justice Bello said although Section 180 of the 1999 Constitution was amended in 2010 by the National Assembly and signed into law by the president, the amendment had no effect on the five governors, since their reruns had taken place before the amendment.

He added that there was nowhere in the world where a constitution took retroactive effect as erroneously held by the INEC, saying that the said amendment could not be used to determine the tenure of the governors who took oath of office in 2008.

Meanwhile, Justice Ibrahim Auta of a Federal High Court, Abuja, on Wednesday, debunked the reports as contained in a newspaper claiming that he had stopped the sequence of elections as planned by the INEC in the forthcoming April elections.

This was contained in a statement issued by the deputy chief registrar of the court in Abuja, Emmanuel Gakko and made available to the Nigerian Tribune.

According to the statement, “our attention has been drawn to newspaper reports alleging that His Lordship, the Honorable Justice Ibrahim Auta, had on Thursday, March 3, 2011, declared INEC’s timetable for the holding of the April 2011 elections illegal, unconstitutional, void and of no effect whatsoever.

“For the avoidance of doubt, in order to put the record straight, the judge ruled that the court had no power whatsoever to order INEC not to go ahead as per the timetable for the April 2011 elections as provided by INEC.”

-Tribunewp_posts