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The Edo State gubernatorial election petition is heating up. With the Social Democratic Party (SDP) withdrawing its petition, the focus is now on the legal battle between the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The petition, filed by Asue Ighodalo with Petition No.: EPT/ED/GOV/02/2024 (the Petition), challenges the outcome of the August 2024 gubernatorial election on two main grounds considered in this column (with which I welcome all my esteemed readers to the new year).
The Election Petition Tribunal has outlined a detailed plan for the proceedings. The pre-hearing schedule has been completed, and the actual hearing/trial commenced on January 21, 2025. The tribunal has allowed parties to call witnesses whose written statements on oath were filed in advance.
A total of 290 witnesses are expected to testify, with star witnesses allocated 40 minutes to adopt their statements and tender documents, followed by 20 minutes of cross-examination. The time for Petitioners to cross-examine the witnesses of each of the Respondents is however 30 minutes. For other witnesses, it is 25 minutes for examination in chief and 10 minutes for cross-examination, across board. The tribunal is to sit daily from 10am except for Sundays and gazetted public holidays.
It is important to note that the current legal regime allows the tribunal a total of 180 days to hear and determine the Petition. Given this background, the Tribunal allotted the Petitioners 21 days and to the Respondent 10 days each to ventilate their respective cases. At the close of trial, parties will each require to file a Final Address on legal arguments to advance their respective claims or defences.
Now to some of the key salient legal issues raised in the Petition;the Petitioners have quite a novel contention under the new Electoral Act, 2022, to the effect that non-serialisation of the result sheets, BVAS Machines and other sensitive materials deployed for the conduct of the election, particularly in about 320 polling units of about 18 of the local government areas of Edo State, invalidate the election.
The other issue is that highlighted in the objection of the Independent National Electoral Commissions objection to the competence of the Petition itself. The contention of INEC legal team led by Kanu G. Agabi, CON, SAN is that the two grounds on which they Petitioners predicated their Petition are incompatible and cancel our each other – one challenging that the election be invalidated for reason of non-compliance and the other claiming that the Petitioners won by a majority of the lawful vote cast.
On serialization, antecedents show that a 1similar matter came up under the 2007 Electoral Act when Atiku Abubakar, Dim Ojukwu and Muhammadu Buhari challenged the election of Umaru Musa Yar’adua before the Presidential Election Petition and the Supreme Court in several appeals (Abubakar v. YarAdua [2008] 19 NWLR Part 1120; Buhari v. INEC [2008] 19 NWLR Part 1120; and Ojukwu v. Yar’adua [2009] 12 NWLR Part 1154.
Whereas the substantive decision flowing from thesd cases were that non-serialisation must be pleaded by the Petitioners and proven to have substantially affected the outcomes of the election, Dissenting opinions were made by Oguntade, Onnoghen and Aderemi, JJSC (as they then were) who held that non-serialisation erodes the foundation of credibility of the polls and that onus was on the Respondents to prove that such non-compliance was not substantial enough to vetiate the entire election.
On the grounds of the Petitioners, the issue is similar or can be akin to the principle of mutual exclusivity of grounds as expounded in several cases where the courts held that a party cannot blow hot and cold at the same time, seeking on one breath to discredit a process and, on another to derive a benefit from same. However, there could be the exception and argument that if the grounds and reliefs of the Petitioners are stated in the alternative, either (whichever proven) is grantable.
It is equally important to note that if the results from the 320 poling units are discounted, and the majority of the lawful votes puts the Petitioners in the lead, the matter does not end there; Section 179(2)(b) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and Sections 24(2 & 3), 47(3) and 51(2) of the Electoral Act 2022, on the required spread and margin of lead respectively must also be satisfied.
Q & A – The Lawyer’s Feedback
Greetings Barrister,
For the past 3 years I have been in a one-bedroom apartment belonging to a man I barely ever met. But the caretaker gave me an account into which I have always paid my rent. The first year was in full and the 2nd and 3rd were irregularly paid in installments but fully paid before the end of each year. Into the 4th year, and shortly after I paid about 30% of my rent, a new caretaker suffaced and told me I was no longer needed in the apartment and that I am being given a 7 days notice of the landlord intention to recover the premises. Please advice as this has distabilised my young family as my wife and I just welcomed our first baby.
Position of the Law
Hello friend, thank you for your feedback. Congratulations on your baby’s arrival.
1) The law does not mandate your landlord to issue you a tenancy agreement for the property you rented and have been residing in for the last 3 years.
2) By virtue of the timeframe for which you have been there, the law will presume the nature of your rent to be a periodic annual rent and since your renewal has been irregular and instalmental, your are deemed to still be a tenant in arrears of rent and entitled to 6 months quit notice before you can be evicted.
3) Your landlord has no power to personally throw you out or use the police to evict you. Only the sheriff of the court can do so, armed with a judgment and order of a court.
4) Before such a judgment or order can exist, you must first be invited to court and be heard on your own side of the story.
Yours truly, JD
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Readers and followers are advised to keep the questions coming and don’t be discouraged if I am yet to pick and answer yours. The questions are picked randomly. So keep sending them in through all of my official channels of communication as disclosed in this column (jdaniel.nig@gmail.com; twitter @attorney_ng and Whatsapp +234 802 746 2264)
Legal Quote…
“What keeps agitating my mind is that while the Electoral Act clearly sets out certain acts or omissions that constitute non-compliance, (some of which are mandatory) but another provision of the same law attaches some conditions that may disqualify them from being consequential. How then does one assess or determine the substantiality of non-compliance alleged and proved as it relates to the result of an election? I mean section 45(2) specifically says that ballot papers shall be bound in booklets and numbered serially etc, but the failure to do so was not treated with the seriousness it deserves. A ballot paper is to my mind the pivot of an election result. It is a fundamental requirement of an election. The success or failure of a candidate depends on the number of the ballotpapers cast for him by the electorate. In other words without the ballot papers it will not be possible to categorically determine which of the candidates in a particular election was more popular and more acceptable to the people than the others in terms of who scored the highest votes. It is the ballot papers that are collated and counted that determine this and lead to the declaration of the winner. So how can it be said that this stage of the election process is not the most important stage of the exercise? It is in fact the climax of the whole process. I refuse to agree otherwise. The omission toserialize the ballot papers was definitely a substantial non-compliance that needs to be critically looked at. Without non serialization how do you determine what ballot papers were sent to where? Besides, doesn’t the non-serialization make the counting and collation rather uncertain? Methink so. If the other non-compliances could be waived aside with the hands, because they were not proved, this should not be so with this particular non-compliance.”
~ Per Muktar JSC (in Buhari v. INEC [2008] 19 NWLR (Pt. 1120) 246 SC at 490, Paras. C to H)
