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Romanus Okoye
Fourteen witnesses have so far told the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Lagos that there was no need for the re-run election of April 27, arguing that the one conducted on February 23, which produced Hon. Rita Orji as the winner, according to results announced at the polling units, was peaceful.
The petitioners are contending before the tribunal chaired by Kunaza N. Hamidu that the Independent National Election Commission (INEC) has no legal right to cancel an election, which results have been announced, since that legal responsibility is reserved for the court.
They insisted that the alleged re-run election to elect House of Representatives member for Ajeromi-Ifelodun Federal Constituency on April 27 was marred by massive electoral malpractices, including threat to voters and agents of other political parties, particularly the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) agents, supporters and non- indigenes. “I was told that if I came closer, they would kill me, that this is not our land. And when I called the attention of the police officer attached to my polling unit, he was threatened that his uniform would be removed if he intervened,” one of the witnesses told the tribunal.
Orji, who represented Ajeromi-Ifelodun Federal Constituency of Lagos State at the eighth National Assembly and PDP are the petitioners, while the INEC, the All Progressive Congress (APC) and Hon. Kolawole Taiwo are the respondents.
A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Pedro Lawan, who represented Taiwo, explained that part of the grounds for the respondents’ defence was that there was no proper election on February 23 due to logistics problems encountered by the election umpire like late arrival of election materials and non emergence of clear winner, due to the insignificant margin.
He, however, stated that unlike the February 23 election, there were sufficient materials, manpower, security officials during the April 27 re-run election, in which the APC candidate emerged winner, looking at the number of registered voters and actual voting at both elections.
He said while any aggrieved party has the right to approach the court, there was ordinarily no need for the petition because the petitioners admitted in their evidence that there was no results in at least 19 polling units, and no report of violence was made at the police.
