THE Independent National Electoral Commission on Wednesday filed a Notice of Appeal before the Court of Apeal in Abuja, asking it to set aside the judgment of a Federal High Court in Abuja
Justice Adamu Bello had in his judgment delivered on February 23, stopped INEC from conducting governorship elections in five states - Bayelsa, Kogi, Sokoto, Adamawa and Cross River.
But INEC had faulted the verdict and anchored its appeal on eight grounds saying that the trial judge erred in law.
The electoral body also named Governor of Bayelsa State, Timipre Sylva; the Attorney-General of Bayelsa State; Mienyobofa Stephen Gow; Governor of Kogi State, Ibrahim Idris; Governor of Sokoto State, Aliyu Wammako; Governor of Adamawa State, Murtala Nyako and Governor of Cross River State, Liyel Imoke, as co-respondents to the appeal.
Lawyer to INEC, Dame Carol Ajie, had filed the appeal just as she had filed an application seeking for a stay of execution of the judgment of the lower court, pending determination of its request for it to be set-aside.
On the claim of the judge that oaths of office taken by the governors before the nullification of their elections still subsists in view of the fact that they were subsequently retuned as winners of the re-run in their various states.
The commission said, “There is nowhere throughout the seventh schedule of the 1999 Constitution and section 185 thereof, where the oath of allegiance and oath of office being administered by the chief judge of a state, on a governor, is distinguished or distinguishable from the oath of allegiance and oath of office being administered also by the same CJ on the same governor who won a rerun election.”
INEC also faulted Justice Bello for placing reliance on the Supreme Court decided case-law of Obi vs. INEC (supra), insisting that in the said case, that the apex court presided by Justice Pius Aderemi held that in applying the provisions of section 180(2) of the Constitution, 1999, the four-year tenure of office of Peter Obi, as governor of Anambra State will run from March 17, 2006 when he was first sworn-in to March 17, 2010 because Dr. Chris Ngige’s election having been annulled, the period of Ngige was in office as the governor of Anambra State could not count for the period a different person, who was a victim of electoral irregularities (Obi) first assumed the office of governor of his State, on March 17, 2006.
The commission further said, “Whereas the plaintiffs/respondents’ case ought to have been distinguished from Obi’s case because they had been in office as governors before they were removed by the Court of Appeal for electoral irregularities and a rerun having been conducted within 90 days, returned to the same office, re-sworn and continued from where they had their tenures briefly interrupted.
“In Ladoja v. INEC & 2 ors (supra), the Supreme Court held that the period Ladoja was out of office as Governor of Oyo State (11 months) which was a longer period than the period of interruption experienced by the plaintiffs/respondents in the consolidated suits, counted in computing Ladoja’s four-year tenure who was removed by the Oyo State House of Assembly and subsequently re-instated by a court order that nullified the process of his removal and declared it illegal.
“Both the principle enunciated in the cases of Obi v. INEC and Ladoja v. INEC & 2 ors do not support the erroneous conclusion reached by the learned trial judge that the re-run tenures for the governors of the five states would start afresh under section 180 (2) of the 1999 Constitution.
No date has been fixed for the hearing of the appeal.
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