The Supreme Court on Monday reserved judgement in the appeal brought before it by the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa State, Aisha Dahiru, aka Binani, challenging the election of Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
When the matter came up on Monday, parties adopted their written addresses, and a five-member panel of Justices of the Apex Court, led by Justice John Okoro, reserved judgement for a date that would be communicated to parties.
Binani had argued through her counsel, Chief Akin Olujimi (SAN), that the declaration of results by the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Hudu Ari, was lawful.
She is challenging the victory of Fintiri in the governorship election and praying to the court to overrule the judgement of the Adamawa state election petition tribunal and that of the Court of Appeal that had dismissed her petition.
The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja had, in December last year, dismissed the appeal filed by Aisha Dahiru and her party, challenging Fintiri’s election.
In a unanimous judgement of a three-member panel of Justices of the appellate court led by Justice Tunde Awotoye, the court upheld the judgement of the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which affirmed Fintiri’s election as governor of Adamawa State.
Justice Ebiowei Tobi, who read the judgement, held that the record of proceedings transmitted to the Court of Appeal and the briefs of the appellants were incomplete and the court would not consider them.
He said the appellants failed to show how the alleged non-compliance substantially affected the result of the election and held that the responsibility of declaring election results is solely that of a returning officer and not any other person.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), he said, has no power to declare election results and added that “the action of the REC was absolutely out of his power. The lower tribunal was right not to give relevance to the declaration; the REC is on its own.”
While holding that the appellants, Aisha Binani and her party, failed to prove the allegations contained in their joint petition as required by law, Justice Tobi said,
“This appeal is defective. The three witnesses called by the appellants cannot prove the allegation of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act in the conduct of the election in 14,104 polling units
“On the whole, this appeal lacks merit and is accordingly dismissed. The decision of the lower tribunal is hereby affirmed”, the court held and awarded a cost of N1 million against the petitioners to be paid to Fintiri and the PDP.”
It would be recalled that the APC candidate lost at the tribunal in a judgement delivered in Yola, the Adamawa state capital, on October 28, 2023, where the chairperson of the tribunal, Justice Theodora Obi Uloho, dismissed the petition filed by the APC candidate on the grounds that the petition lacked legal ingredients to upturn Fintiri’s victory.
Uloho, in her 176-page judgement, noted that Aisha Binani failed to prove her allegations of over-voting by not tendering documents to prove her case.
Citing Section 51 of the Electoral Act and the Supreme Court judgement on the Adeleke vs. Oyetola case, the judge said that to prove the allegations of overvoting, the petitioner must tender before the tribunal the voter register of the affected areas to ascertain the number of registered voters.
She added that the petitioner must tender a Bi-modal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine to prove the number of people accredited for the election in each of the affected polling units, wards, and local governments.
On the allegations of non-compliance, the tribunal held that the petitioner failed woefully to name the polling units, wards, and local councils where there was non-compliance during the election.
Uloho said the petitioner failed to comply with Sections 104, 87, 68, 83, and 93 (3) of the Evident Act 2011, which rendered the petitioner’s case impotent.
The then Adamawa State REC, Hudu Ari, is now standing trial at the federal high court, Yola, for unconstitutionally declaring Binani winner when the collection of results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials was still going on.
