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Abia Tribunal: Issues arising from miscarriage of justice *Part One

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By Eze Chikamnayo

On Friday,  the 6th day of October,  2023, the reconstituted Governorship Tribunal that oscillated between Government House – Hotel Damgrette and the Court delivered it’s very predictable and widely considered  “Perverse ” Verdict in favour of their host, Mr Alex Otti.

Abians ignored them as they didn’t  disappoint those who were convinced ab-initio that their stay in Umuahia was a mere rehearsal.

Now that we are happily done with that unfortunate episode, let’s quickly examine some of the real issues  brought before the Tribunal which can neither be swept away nor sacrilegiously sacrificed on the altar of brinkmanship.

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First, it is not the intendment of the Law that the Law should give with one hand and also take away with the other hand.

The Electoral Act clearly provided for witnesses to be subpoenaed and those witnesses can only be subpoenaed during the course of the tribunal trial, that’s after the petitioner has filled his petition.

The law did not contemplate and could not have contemplated a situation whereby witnesses of the adverse party would willingly depose to statements of oath for petitioners – to have enabled them file same along with their petition at the time of filling.

The above absurd and impossible scenario is what the trial tribunal held in their curious judgement which is clearly, to every discerning legal mind, an irrefutable error.

Ordinarily, once the final result of an election is declared, a party has just 21 days from the time of the declaration of results to file his petition.

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The question which the tribunal failed to answer is whether a petitioner can get a tribunal which hasn’t started sitting to issue a subpoena on an adverse witness or party to compel such witness to make depositions for frontloading?

For instance, in the  Abia Gubernatorial Elections case, INEC is the 1st Respondent in the Petition. There’s therefore no way PDP or Chief Ahiwe would have gotten the Tribunal to  issue a Subpoena to get INEC to depose, sign and do all the administrative routine of the  subpoena and hand it over to PDP to enable them to file (all within 21 days) when the tribunal is yet to start sitting. That is not possible.

The tribunal judges very well know that a Subpoena is a document used to COMPEL witnesses to come to court – whether recalcitrant  witnesses or those who refuse to come UNLESS COMPELLED BY LAW.

The PDP and Chief Ahiwe took advantage of this provision of the law and brought the INEC witnesses to court yet the court unexplainably ruled that such witnesses should have been brought to depose at the time of filling!

By the wrongful exclusion of the official witnesses who came on subpoena, the tribunal willfully denied itself the benefit of their evidence both documentary and oral and in so doing, the petitioners were denied the benefits accruable from those evidence which inadvertently has evidently occasioned a glaring miscarriage of justice for which there should be an appeal.

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Sadly, it is for such perplexing ground above that those who believe that tremendous amount of water has passed under the bridge in this Otti matter are predicating their position. This is a very sad story for the judiciary.

Another area of interest is what transpired regarding the Kano judgement which co-incidentally was put in evidence by Alex Otti and the Labour Party as Respondents – they were the ones that initialled that particular angle.

As we speak,  there is in existence, a Judgement in rem and in personna and subsisting to the effect that candidates of Labour Party were disqualified and that they had none for the elections.

Mr Alex Otti as shown by him as the Second Respondent, interestingly made efforts to appeal against the Kano Judgement in order to be hurriedly sworn in as Governor.

But that particular appeal is no longer subsisting by virtue of the operation of the Constitution and that leaves us only with the judgement of the Federal High Court Kano.

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Invariably, the fact is that before the Law, Mr Alex Otti was not even a candidate during the gubernatorial elections for Abia State held on the 18th of March.

That is the irrefutable effect of the subsisting judgement of the Federal High Court Kano which remains and will continue to remain subsisting since the Constitutional window created for its appeal has forever elapsed.

In their decision, the Abia Gubernatorial Elections Tribunal again apparently glossed over the  grave implication of the Kano judgement whereas they are supposed to have given effect to that judgement which is subsisting. Moreso since that is the cardinal ground in contention which is that Mr Alex Otti was at the time of the elections not qualified.

Remember that the said particular matter that resulted in the judgement of the Federal High Court Kano was initiated even before the election so it is a pre- election matter; already pending at the time.

The tribunal ought to have correctly given effect to that subsisting judgement against which there is not and can never be an appeal again because constitutionally the time allowed for any appeal on the matter has expired.

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Thirdly, the Electoral Act provided for declaration of results at different levels insitu. That is wherever that level of election or collation took place.

If election takes place in the unit, it MUST be DECLARED there. Then the result must be taken to the Ward Collation Center and it MUST be collated there. Thereafter, the collated ward results must be taken to the LGA Collation Center where they will again be collated and also ANNOUNCED and DECLARED.

In the case of Obingwa Local Government, when the results which has  duly passed through the Unit,  Ward and LGA collation stages, were now brought to the final/State Collation Center at Umuahia, the cantankerous Returning Officer, one Mrs  Nnenna Otti, for reasons best known to her, contrary to the provisions of the law decided that she wasn’t going to use the results ALREADY DECLARED AND ANNOUNCED IN OBINGWA LGA in the final collation at the state level.

She then brazenly took away the results to Abuja to be “RECOLLATED” ostensibly because she’s not comfortable with the outcome.

This illegal, hide and seek moves she did without notice to the political parties, again, contrary to the clear provisions of the Electoral Act and INEC Guidelines which makes it mandatory for the agents to witness what is happening.

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After this  strange “RE – COLLATION EXPEDITION”  in far away Abuja, surprisingly no Agent of any political party witnessed or signed the new   “Abuja Results ” Nnenna Otti and her cohorts concocted and brought back after a whole three days!

In a very condescending manner, unscrupulous Mrs Nnenna Otti, the  obviously biased Returning Officer, came back and used the strange results to announce final scores thereby ROBBING THE PDP OF THEIR ADVANTAGE  ACCRUING FROM THEIR KNOWN STRONGHOLD AND DENYING THEM LAWFUL VOTES  already collated at all levels.

And that again, is one of the major reasons why the petitioners, Chief Ahiwe and the PDP complained that there was substantial non-compliance with the provisions of the law and then that Alex Otti and Labour Party did not win by majority of the votes cast.

In deciding this issue, the tribunal drew an instant explosion of noise and uproar in the Court Room from even journalists, when they magically held that the petitioners didn’t prove that the Obingwa LGA results were taken to Abuja –  A FACT OF PUBLIC KNOWLEDGE WHICH THE RESPONDENTS ALREADY ADMITTED TO IN THEIR OWN DEPOSITION EVEN VIA THEIR STAR WITNESS AND WHICH WAS REPORTED IN VERY MAJOR MEDIA OUTLETS ACROSS THE GLOBE!

Such glaring, “overzealous”,  miscarriage of justice in a FACT that would have entirely altered the outcome of the trial is another fundamental flaw.

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With utmost respect to the Tribunal, this very perplexing finding made by them on the  issue of the manipulation and exclusion of LAWFUL VOTES already collated from Obingwa LGA is to say the least, untenable.

Cases in the Tribunal are fought principally on pleadings and the petitioners (Ahiwe/PDP), pleaded that the Obingwa results, was collated,  declared and announced at the LGA Collation Center at Obingwa and that when it was brought to Umuahia, the State Returning Officer, the reckless and incompetent Mrs Nnenna Otti suspended collation and took the results to Abuja for doctoring.

Interestingly, at the tribunal, both the Labour Party and Alex Otti admitted that they did go to Abuja with the Collated Obingwa LGA Results.

In fact,  Mrs Nnenna Otti had a deposition prepared for her attached to the reply of the respondents wherein she gave graphic details of what made her take the already collated Obingwa LGA Results to Abuja for  alteration.

So, the question of whether the Obingwa Results were taken to Abuja is not in dispute and it need not be proved any longer  because in Law,  A FACT THAT IS ADMITTED NEED NOT BE PROVED!

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So, for the Tribunal to turn round and hold that the petitioners did not prove that the Obingwa Results were taken to Abuja is like a huge joke ; the 8th wonder of this world  and a travesty which has occasioned a gross miscarriage of Justice in this case.

As always, Alex Otti is miserably daft and ignorant. His petty reactions to what some people has since described as “prepared” and “prepaid” is pathetic.

After the widely rejected Judgement , he danced naked in the streets taunting his opponents to the divert monies they intend to spend on appeals for building roads in their villages.

Yet, it is this same diminutive Akex Otti who after the 2015 gubernatorial elections went all the way up to the Supreme Court three good times and crisscrossed all other available courts in Nigeria in his futile attempt to truncate the Electoral mandate of his predecessor.

By hastily mocking the APC and PDP after this very controversial and curious judgement, he is nonsensically gloating in futility over nothing.

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An election tribunal lacks the power to ignore or set aside the decision of the Federal High Court. Also for you to subpoena a witness, you must situate the witness within a petition. INEC cannot claim that they monitored Abia Labour Congress when in actual fact, there was no congress to be monitored

These and many other grounds which are still available for legal scrutiny at the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court is the reason why the premature gyrations of Alex Otti is a sign of deliberate amnesia.

Judgements are not supposed to be transactional. However, it’s unfortunate that certain judicial pronouncements which often collapse when subjected to dispassionate legal scrutiny have become common place in our clime.

Unexplainable, politically motivated judgements dent the judiciary and whenever the dispensation of justice is colored by pecuniary interests. It certainly spells doom not just for our hallowed judiciary but for the entire society.

…to be continued.

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Chikamnayo, former Information Commissioner, writes from Aba

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BREAKING: Death penalty for fake drugs! *NAFDAC to push new law at NASS

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Those peddling fake and substandard drugs in Nigeria should be ready for the hangman’s noose, if the thinking of the National Agency for Food and Drugs Administration and Control (NAFDAC), becomes the new law.

Mojisola Adeyeye, Director General of the body, who said on Friday that no other form of punishment is fitting enough, gave instances of where the application of such dangerous substances in form of health drugs, had led to fatalities.

Advocating that only stiff penalties would deter peddlers especially when deaths of children became involved, the NAFDAC boss, who appeared as a guest on The Morning Brief, a breakfast programme on Channels Television, said: “Somebody bought children’s medicine for N13,000 or something like that, another person was selling about N3,000 in the same mall. 

“That raised an alarm. Guess what? There was nothing inside that medicine when we tested it in our Kaduna lab. So, I want the death penalty. Because you don’t need to put a gun on the head of a child before you kill that child. Just give that child bad medicine.”

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Advocating that the National Assembly and the judiciary to make the proposal a reality, adding that the agency was open to partnering with lawmakers and other stakeholders on the matter, she added: “You cannot fight substandard, falsified medicine in isolation. The agency can do as much as it can but if there is no deterrent, there’s going to be a problem.

“Somebody brought in 225mg of Tramadol that can kill anybody, fry the brain and you give a judgment of five years in prison or N250,000. Who doesn’t know that that person will go to the ATM and get N250,000? That is part of our problem.

“There are no strict measures to deter [people] from repeating the same thing. We can do as much as we can but if our law is not strong enough, or the judiciary is not strong enough to stand up, we’re going to have a problem.

“So, our judiciary system must be strong enough. But we are working with the National Assembly to make our penalties very stiff.  But if you kill a child by bad medicine, you deserve to die. We have a lot on our plate in stemming drug peddling.

“Withe about 2,000 staff members nationwide and limited funding, NAFDAC is constrained in carrying out its activities. So, when it comes to staffing, you’re right on the point. We are short-staffed and I am hoping things will be better.”

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Give us electoral offences tribunal to take care of heist – INEC  

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Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday, made a fresh push for the creation of an electoral offences tribunal, to curb the cases of attacks on the Nigerian democratic system.

Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman, told reporters at the commission’s first regular quarterly consultative meeting with the media that the tribunal had become important owing to the backlog of electoral offence cases.

He said: “A major obstacle to the speedy dispensation of justice in this regard is that electoral offences are not time-bound as is the case with post-election offences through the tribunals. Furthermore, they are solely prosecuted by the Magistrate and State High Courts in the jurisdiction where the alleged offences are committed,” the INEC chief told the gathering.

“No priority attention is given to such cases as the courts deal with a variety of other cases. Consequently, electoral offences are carried over from one General Election to another which may sometimes affect the diligent prosecution of the cases. It is therefore imperative to renew our call for the creation of the Electoral Offences Tribunal that have a specific jurisdiction and limited timeframe for the speedy dispensation of cases.”

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Bemoaning the delay in the justice delivery system, citing the conviction of a returning officer in Akwa Ibom after six years in court, the INEC boss, said: “The recent successful prosecution of a Returning Officer in Akwa Ibom State is a case in point.

“The Commission has been diligently pursuing the case which arose from the 2019 General Election. In this particular case, it took nearly six years to achieve the successful prosecution at the trial court.

“Through our collaboration with the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) cases involving 774 alleged offenders from the 2023 General Election are being prosecuted. So far, successful prosecutions have been recorded in Kebbi and Kogi States while our collaboration with the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) on vote-buying has yielded similar results in Lagos, Kwara, and Gombe States. Yet, many cases are still pending.”

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Again, terrorists attack Sokoto, kidnap 10 worshippers at a mosque

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A mosque in Bushe community, Sabon Birni Local Government Area of Sokoto State, fell into the hands of bandits on Friday, after which 10 worshippers including the Imam were spirited away, adding to growing cases of terrorist attacks.

Channels Television reports that the gunmen invaded the mosque on Thursday while worshippers were performing their early morning Subhi prayer, quoting residents as saying that the gunmen had been molesting the people of the community for some time now, even with the presence of security agents.

Ahmed Rufai, spokesman of the Sokoto State Police Command, who confirmed the attack on Friday, said the police authorities were working with other security agencies to rescue the abducted victims.

A member of the Sokoto State House of Assembly, representing the Sabon Birni B state Constituency who also confirmed the attack, commended the security agencies for their timely intervention.

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