A five-justice panel of the Court of Appeal, Enugu Division, today ordered Andy Uba, a domestic aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to face a new election for the Anambra Central Senatorial seat. The court affirmed its order nullifying Mr. Uba’s “election” as senator and ordered that a fresh election be held within 90-days.
A five-justice panel of the Court of Appeal, Enugu Division, today ordered Andy Uba, a domestic aide to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to face a new election for the Anambra Central Senatorial seat. The court affirmed its order nullifying Mr. Uba’s “election” as senator and ordered that a fresh election be held within 90-days.
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Today’s ruling put paid to Mr. Uba’s widely condemned recent effort to use a separate panel of the Court of Appeal to overturn the ruling for a new election. SaharaReporters had exposed Mr. Uba’s scheme to wangle victory by bribing some justices of the Court of Appeal, including its president. Following our report, the Chief Justice of the Nigerian Supreme Court stepped in to disband a so-called “review panel” of the Court of Appeal led by Justice Denton West.
In a detailed 90-page ruling, the court advanced reasons for its earlier ruling of December 22, 2011 nullifying Mr. Uba’s “election” as senator in the April, 2011 elections. In a unanimous judgment, the full five-man panel of the appellate court, led by Justice H.M. Ogunwumiju, ruled in favor of Chuma Nzeribe, Mr. Uba’s chief opponent, on five out of six grounds of appeal. Mr. Nzeribe, an equally controversial politician who ran on the ticket of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), was represented by Barrister O.A. Obianwu (SAN).
Reading the panel’s three-hour judgment, Justice Adzira Gana Mshelia held that INEC over-reached itself by conducting a fraudulent election marred by violence and various forms of electoral malpractices. The court found that the results for the three local government areas of Aguata, Orumba North and Orumba South were written on April 10, 2011 while the “Declaration of Result”” sheet was written on April 9, 2011 as evidenced by the result sheets tendered by Mr. Uba and the electoral commission at the tribunal. A lawyer who was in court today told our correspondent that the implication was that “The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could not wait to collate results from the three LGAs before declaring Chief Andy Uba as a senator.” The court found that INEC’s action resulted in the disenfranchising of about 199,606 registered voters in the three local government areas. The electoral commission credited Mr. Uba with a score of about 60,000 votes in the election while Chuma Nzeribe reportedly won 42,000 votes.
The court also agreed with the appellant on the issue of tendering of video evidence of Andy Uba and Nicholas Ukachukwu fighting over who was the legitimate candidate of the PDP even as collation of results was taking place at INEC’s office in Nnewi. The appellate justices wondered why the electoral tribunal neglected such vital evidence even when it was specifically pleaded in the petition.
In today’s judgment, the court chided Mr. Uba’s collation agent, Tim Egboka, for signing collation result sheets of three local government areas on behalf of the PDP and Andy Uba even though he was officially listed as a collation agent at Aguata LGA collation centre. The court found that Mr. Egboka also violated provisions of the 2010 Electoral Act which forbid a serving member of a House of Assembly from acting as a party agent.
The court upheld the complaint of the appellant about the massive electoral fraud perpetrated at INEC’s collation center in Ihiala, including falsification of results from seven wards and the exclusion of declared results from Ihite, Ogboro and Amamu wards of Ihiala.
In filing Nzeribe’s petition at the Court of Appeal, his counsel, Mr. Obianwu, had raised an issue that the PDP had declared that Mr. Uba was not the party’s candidate. In fact, the PDP’s National Legal Adviser had in a letter of February 14, 2011 stated that the party did not regard Mr. Uba as their candidate. One lawyer told SaharaReporters that the import of the PDP’s letter “is that Andy was not sponsored by any political party. The case can be made, therefore, that he was not qualified to run in the election as required by constitution.”
After handing down today’s ruling, the panel of justices rose and then reconvened to consider a motion earlier filed by Mr. Uba asking the court to set aside its unanimous judgment delivered last December.
The court listened to arguments from Arthur Obi-Okafor (SAN), counsel to Mr. Uba, Obiora J. Nnadi (SAN), who represented INEC, Mr. Obianwu, counsel to Mr. Nzeribe. In the end, the court declared that a preliminary objection filed by Mr. Obianwu against Andy Uba’s motion was meritorious. It therefore dismissed the motion to set aside its judgment and vacated an earlier order made on February 10 barring INEC from conducting an election for the Anambra South senatorial seat.
The court ordered INEC to conduct a new election between the parties within 90-days as previously ordered. A source in the judiciary told SaharaReporters that today’s judgment meant that “the Court of Appeal has averted judicial anarchy which would have been the case if a separate panel of the same court had been allowed to review – and potentially revise – a judgment of a competent panel on a National Assembly election matter.”
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