Tribunal Upholds Mikang Constituency Election

Yakubu Busari

The State House of Assembly election petition tribunal on Thursday upheld the victory of Member Representing Mikang Constituency, Hon Daniel Jonathan Naanlong of the All Progressive Congress, APC, while it dismissed the PDP candidate petition for lack of merit and the failure of the petitioner to prove his case beyond a reasonable doubt.

 

The petitioners, People Democratic Party, PDP, and Hon Theophilus has challenged that the election held on the 9th March 2019 which INEC declared Naanlong as the winner adding it was full of irregularities, mutilation, and over-voting.

 

He was seeking an interim order of the tribunal to quash the election and declare him having scored the highest number of votes cast.

 

He urged the tribunal to nullify and order for a rerun in 10 polling units into the office of the state house of Assembly Mikang constituency.

 

The judgment explained that the witness paraded by PDP, and the candidate in their statement on oath are incompetent and lack facts or proof of evidence that weren’t supported.

 

According to the judgment, the candidate failed to prove the issue of over-voting, fortifications, alterations of result which made the entire petition invalid and can’t meet up the electoral act.

 

The Tribunal said the reliefs sought by the PDP and her candidate didn’t adequately support the paragraph 4.1b of the electoral act, as it stated that the allegations brought by the PDP are not the business of the tribunal to focus her mind on the error of the respondents.

 

The judgment can’t digest the petitioners’ area of conflict generally on six grounds of the 1,2&3 respondents that the tribunal lacks the jurisdiction, that fact of the petition didn’t support ground base on the standard of the electoral act.

 

The 1,2&3 respondents argued that the petition lack grounds and had abandoned his petition on abuse of electoral process with the statement of PW1, PW2  which were expunged from the records.

 

They asked that the tribunal should strike out the petitioners petition for he has failed to satisfy the requirements due to incompetence because all witnesses statements on oath were accordance to the mandatory of the court in section 138(1b) of the electoral act.

 

The tribunal ruled all parties are allowed to ventilate their cases on the side of merit going by the guideline of conduct of the exercise in compliance with section 13 of the electoral act.

 

The judges struck out that the petition for failing to meet up the credibility of the petition especially the issue of over-voting, fortifications, cancellation of results and the alleged non-use of smart card readers which malfunction.

 

Responding to the judgment, Hon Naanlong Jonathan Daniel commended the tribunal for upholding the victory which he said it is the mandate of people of Mikang constituency.

 

He urged the people of the constituency to expect more dividends of democracy with the victory obtained.

 

Daniel called on politicians to imbibe the culture of sportsmanship and tolerance among one another for democracy to grow, as he said because the resources used for the pursuit of the litigation should have been channeled for the development of the areas.