Will the Supreme Court obey the supreme will of the people?

The Supreme Court is the highest Court of the land and its verdict on any case is final. This is not an attempt to take anything away from God, but when it comes to jurisprudence, it is the final stop.

Some few days from now, the Supreme Court will give its judgment of the matter brought before it by Governor Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom State, who is the flag bearer of the PDP, in respect to the ruling of the Court of Appeal on the April 11 2015 governorship election which validity is being challenged by the APC.

This is a case which has defied all legal logic and for once all hope is alive as the Supreme Court is expected to correct the judicial anomalies and travesty of justice promoted by the election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal.

One thing is clear; it was a case of miscarriage of justice.

I will start with the APC closing argument of the APC. The party claimed Governor Udom through his counsel failed to anchor his appeal on any evidence adduced by him before the lower Tribunal, and went further by pre-empting the election petition tribunal by stating it believed every word of its closing argument.

One is left so curious to the legal and logical rationalisation of the fact that the Lower Tribunal held that thousands of eligible voters are disenfranchised and had to cancel the results of 18 local government areas based on the testimony of 10 witnesses.

A question here is;how possible was it for the 10 witnesses testify for disenfranchisement of 18 Local Government Areas? To me this is not enough to discharge the burden of proof by the APC as the petitioner because the 18 LGAs had 1,801 polling units and 996,446 registered voters

A voter can only be said to be disenfranchised when as a duly registered voter, his right to vote is taken away by denying him to vote.

For any Court to validate that a voter or voters is/were disenfranchised, such person must avail the Court evidence that they were registered but were not allowed to vote, the voters card and voters register for the polling units must be tendered, and lastly, all disenfranchised voters must testify to prove that if they were allowed to vote, their candidates would have won the election.

It will amount to stating the obvious that none of the aforementioned provisions were meant in a bid to proof disenfranchisement of voters.

The 1801 voters registers for the 1801 in those 18 LGAs were never tendered in both the Tribunal and Appeal Court by the APC.

996,446 witnesses who were claimed to be disenfranchised never appeared at both the election petition tribunal and the Court of Appeal to give evidence of how they were denied the right to vote and if they had voted, they all would have voted for Mr. UmanaUmana of the APC which would have returned him as the winner of the April 11 2015 gubernatorial election in line with standard procedure and also as set down rules by the Lordships at the Tribunal..

In furtherance of my analysis, rather than set aside the perverse findings as reached by the election petition tribunal findings that “thousands of voters” were disenfranchised in the 18LGAs and a rerun was ordered in those 18 LGAs, that the Appeal Court did not only give such perverse finding a seal of approval, that  the result of the elections was wholly nullified based on evidence of 10 witnesses of doubtful credibility which very candidate   pronounced in PW7(Plaintiff Witness) who claimed to be an expert and under cross examination was found out to be no expert  gives me so much hope.

When i said the tribunal did “perverse”,  APC and its candidate never pleaded any fact to the effect of the nullification of election in those 18 LGAs in their petition.

I still insist the election petition tribunal erred when it relied on the evidence of PW 1 and PW 2 (Plaintiff Witness) to nullify the entire result of Onna Local Government Area holding that thousands of voters indicated to vote, but were disenfranchised.

These two witnesses claimed there were no election materials in their polling units and voters we never accredited  but in the evidence tendered by INEC at the tribunal showed that there was card reader accreditation in 131 polling unit in Onna Local Government Area and the polling units of PW 1 and  PW 3 as well.

Those claims they made under oath, and this amounts to perjury and deliberate misleading of the tribunal, though one can say the tribunal turned a blind eye to these facts and deliberately chose to be misled.

I am left wondering if the Card Reader ceased to be an election materail for the sake of the travesty of justice in favor of Mr. Umana Umana and his party; the APC.

It gives me so much HOPE that the Justices at the Supreme Court will obey the supreme will of the good people of Akwa Ibom State who came out in their millions to vote for change by not changing the party they felt guarantees them continuity of good governance.

I am so confident the Supreme Court will surely do the needful, based on these analysis, the Supreme Court will surely decide in favour of Governor Emmanuel Udom of Akwa Ibom State.

Stephen Ekanem wirites from Lagos

Stephen Ekanem