Why Plateau Local Govt Appeal Tribunal Sacked Amos Kparnim Of APC And Declared Hon Joshua Ubandoma Laven Winner
Yakubu Busari
The Local Government Election Appeal Tribunal sitting in Jos, Plateau state capital has on Friday dismissed the Election Tribunal judgment that upheld the election of Hon Nanloh Amos kparnim of All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of Langtang North Local Government Council by ordering Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission ,PLASIEC to give certificate of return to Hon Joshua Ubandoma Laven who scored the highest number of lawful votes cast.
The three-man panel headed by Justice Arum Ashom in their seven hours judgment said the appellant counsel took over 38 witnesses who are polling units agents in 18 wards of Langtang North LGA and 11 wards were the remaining without witness tender.
The six grounds sought to challenge the Lowest Tribunal judgment at the election that held the 110 polling units except 4 polling units which saw that the Local government returning officer, Mr. Samuel Gomar disappearing in Langtang North to surface at PLASIEC headquarters to present fake result sheets without agents signatures on each of the score and the agents of political parties reflecting.
The judgment frowns that there was no scored recorded for other political parties which the APC and PLASIEC tendered as exhibits but the results tendered by the petitioners, (Hon Joshua Ubandoma Laven, PDP) shows on April 18th, 2018 LG election indicate votes for other political parties.
It was clear that all the true certified copies of respondents results receive dated 15th April 2019 is full of doubt on the authenticity of why the 3rd respondent should issue result to the second respondent just to contradict the tender result of the petitioners.
According to him, it is the submission of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents who never provided answers to exhibits R92 which is one of the perfect documents that has come to play after the collections of result from wards but instance the returning officer Mr. Samuel Gomar who was LG returning officer wasn’t the person that declared the APC candidate winner but the PLASIEC Chairman Hon Fenian Ntung Ari that made the announcement in Jos .
The judgment condemned that under PLASIEC law 9 they law was bridged for the election to be announced outside the council headquarters without and breakdown of law and order is tantamount to abuse of power bestow on the PLASIEC.
The judgment reads the 3rd respondent who is , PLASIEC decided to abandoned all the material at the various polling units only to use duplicates copies of results sheet to impose the form R92 which is to this appeal Tribunal is consider as worthless documents.
He noted that there is a difference between admissibility of documents not on its relevancy, the appellant tender all witnesses in this matter did not contradict in any way of the respondents.
Justice Ashom said the respondents on their wildest imagination hurriedly went to obtain results just to announced Hon Nanloh Amos Kparnim which against section 64 of PLASIEC law the wards support to give copies of results sheet to each of the agents of the representative of the political parties.
He said two result sheets which are mark as exhibits 63-67 for petitioners and another exhibit 70-76 for 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents on but that of the petitioners didn’t have the official stamp so he blamed PLASIEC that the result sheets presented by them are not genuine.
Ashom reminded the PLASIEC that they prepare and issue result by a correspondent to the loser so they can’t benefit from their falls, however, the petitioners tender the true certified copies of what they have in the last election.
Based on the petitioners complained, the evidence of 1st, 2nd, and 3rd defendants counsel show that it was the returning officer that collect and return, only him can return a candidate under section 93 of the PLASIEC law.
The judgment explained further that the Trial Tribunal didn’t investigate the result but painfully went ahead to declare the APC candidate winner without following the due process of the electoral act.
To authenticate the results been collected by section 69 C of the electoral act which is the same with PLASIEC law section 64, the Appeal Tribunal shall compute the 17 wards results out of 18 wards and announced the winner.
The Chairman reiterated that in 10-10-2017 Local government Election held across the 13 LGAs, in Langtang North only APC and PDP that fronted candidates for the election and in 18 wards by a simple calculation the candidate who scored 2/3 of majority votes cast out of the 17 wards except that Rwek stands to be declared.
He added that total of lawful votes cast for APC is 14,708 and PDP 19,599 so based on the results available to the tribunal the appellant is the winner of all the issues raised.
The Appeal Tribunal set aside the judgment of the local government trial Tribunal judgment that APC wasn’t validly elected on account of scores that they didn’t have the majority votes cast now and ordered that Ubandoma Laven is the winner.
We declare null and void the election of Hon Nanloh Amos Kparnim, this Tribunal ordered that the 3rd respondent should issue a certificate of return to Hon Joshua Ubandoma Laven of PDP as the winner.
