Follow Us on Google
Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Minister of Special Duties and Inter-Governmental Affairs, George Akume, has filed an appeal against the judgment of the election petition tribunal which affirmed the outcome of the February 23, 2019 poll.
Akume who lost the last Benue North-West Senatorial District election to the People’s Democratic Party’s Emmanuel Orker-Jev, is challenging the unanimous judgment of the tribunal on 14 grounds.
In the notice of appeal dated September 24, 2018, Akume, a former governor of Benue State for two terms and former Minority Leader in the Senate, is seeking to upturn the judgment of the tribunal.
The Justice R.O Odugu-led three-man panel of the National/State Houses of Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Markurdi, Benue State, had in its judgment, dismissed the petition filed by Akume, of the All Progressives Congress, and affirmed Orker-Jev’s victory in the poll.
The tribunal held, among others that Akume failed to prove the allegations of irregularities and overvoting contained in his petition to warrant the cancellation of the results of the poll in Buruku, Gwer West and Gboko local government areas in the senatorial district.
However, dissatisfied with the decision, the former governor, through his counsel, M.I Dikko, prayed the appellate court for, among others, an order granting his appeal and another setting aside the tribunal’s judgment “except the part of the judgment which held that appellants were not outside the law in the issuance of pre-hearing notice in respect of the 3rd respondent”.
He also prayed for an order returning him “as the winner of the election held in the Benue North-West Senatorial District having scored the highest number of valid votes cast”.
As his alternative prayer, he prayed for “an order nullifying the election conducted on February 23, 2019 in the affected polling units, wards, and local government areas in dispute and in their stead, order a rerun between the appellants and the 1st and 2nd respondents”.
Akume and his party, the APC, are the appellants with the Orker-Jev, the PDP and the Independent National Electoral Commission joined as the 1st to the 3rd respondents, respectively.
The appellants argued in the appeal that the tribunal “erred in law” when it “held that Ground 2 of the petition was grossly incompetent and proceed to strike out Ground 2 of the petition along with paragraphs 96- 182 of the petition which contains facts in support of the said Ground 2 of the petition”.
They also argued that the judges of the tribunal erred in law, “when they failed to nullify the election in Buruku, Gwer West and Gboko local government areas, when there was established evidence of over-voting in the said local government areas, and this occasioned a grave miscarriage of justice.”
They contended that it was established in evidence that the number of accredited voters on Form EC8D(I) of Buruku, Gboko, and Gwer West local government areas was higher than the voters verified with the smart card reader.
The appellants also argued that “having held that evidence of RW7 (the respondents’ star witness) was destroyed during cross-examination, the honourable tribunal erred in law when it dismissed the petition, since there was no contrary evidence before the trial tribunal, and this occasioned a miscarriage of justice.”
The respondents have yet to respond to the appeal.
