Tribunal sacks 10 CPC N’Assembly members

Posted by admin CPC (Congress 4 Progressive Change), House, Latest Politics, Legislature, Party Politics, Senate Thursday, September 29th, 2011

In less than two hours, supporters of no fewer than 10 members of the National Assembly yesterday watched in disbelief as the eye popping judgment of the Election Petition Tribunal in Katsina State stripped their lawmakers of their victory in the April 9 poll.

They are two senators and eight House of Representatives members elected on the platform of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC).

One of the upset recorded at the tribunal brought smiles to the daughter of late President Umaru Musa Yar’Adua, Mariam, candidate of the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Katsina Central Federal Constituency and nine others, who urged the panel to swing victory in their favour.

The Justice S. A. Akinteye ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct a fresh election in each of the constituencies within 90 days from the date of the judgment.
Other titans of the PDP whose petitions were upheld included Senator Ibrahim Ida (Katsina Central Senatorial District), Senator Kanti Bello (Katsina North Senatorial District) who left Senator Ahmed Sani Stores and Senator Abdu Yandoma beaten to a tight corner.

The House of Representatives members who could not surmount the challenges that trailed April 9 victory are Umaru Abdul Dankama, Murtala Isah Faskari, Muntari Dandutse, Amniu Ashiru Bindawa, Umaru Adamu Katsayan, Mohammed Tukur and Tasiu Doguru. The blanket failure of the CPC lawmakers to wrigle out of the petitions against them, according to the tribunal, was grounded in an earlier judgment of the Appeal Court, which held that they were neither validly nominated nor sponsored by the opposition political party to contest the April poll.

The panel also dismissed the allegations of the lawmakers that it lacked the competency and the jurisdiction to entertain the petitions because they were based on nomination of candidates, which, they insisted, remained an internal matter of their party. The tribunal upheld the submission of counsel to the petitioners, Uyi Igunma and Mustapha Abubakar, contrary to the stance of the respondents counsel, Festus Okoye, that the petitions were properly brought before it and it had jurisdiction to entertain it.

The justices however refrained from awarding automatic victory to the PDP standard bearers, saying that would deny the electorate the right to elect the candidates of their choice. Reacting to the judgment, Uyi Iguna said they would be magnanimous in victory by refraining from demanding for cost against the lawmakers, but his counterpart, Okoye simply thanked the tribunal for its tolerance and asked when they could get copies of the verdict.

-Sunwp_posts