he Akwa Ibom State Election Petition Tribunal
sitting in Abuja on Wednesday ordered the
Independent National Electoral Commission to
move the electoral materials used for the April
11, 2015 governorship election to the
commission’s headquarters in Abuja.
This is to enable the All Progressives Congress
and its candidate in the poll, Umana Umana, to
inspect them.
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Umana and his party had complained to the
tribunal that it was unable to enforce an earlier
order granted to them by the tribunal to inspect
the materials in Uyo due to security concern.
The Sadiq Umar-led three-man panel tribunal, in
its ruling on the application by Umana and the
APC, ordered INEC to move the materials to
Abuja within 10 days.
The tribunal also directed security agencies to
provide adequate protection for the
transportation of the electoral materials from
Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, to Abuja.
Umana and the APC had filed their petition
before the tribunal seeking the nullification of
the victory of Governor Udom Emmanuel of the
Peoples Democratic Party at the April 11 poll.
Emmanuel, the PDP, the Independent National
Electoral Commission, the Akwa Ibom State
Resident Electoral Commissioner and the Nigeria
Police Force are the five respondents to the
petition
Umana and his party had argued that their
application for the relocation of election
materials from Uyo to Abuja was not novel as it
was done by previous governorship election
tribunals in the case of Osunbor v. Oshiomhole;
Agagu v. Mimiko; Doma v. INEC and most
recently in the case of Adeymi v. Maleye.
The tribunal, also on Wednesday, rejected an
application by the petitioners seeking an order
striking out Udom’s response to the petition for
being filed out of time.
Emmanuel’s lawyer, Paul Usoro, had urged the
tribunal not to close its eyes to the fact that his
client was just few hours late outside the
statutory seven days allowed by law to file his
response to the petition.
Justice Umar, in a ruling, held that striking out
the Emmanuel’s reply would amount to injustice,
adding that the tribunal was out to do substantial
justice to the petition.
Though the tribunal conceded to the submission
of the petitioners’ lawyer, Dayo Akinlaja (SAN),
that the Emmanuel filed his reply out of time,
but it held the governor could not be shut out
since he had shown good cause by filing it even
if it was out of the stipulated time.
Justice Umar ruled, “It is clear from paragraph
47 to the 1st schedule and section 145(1)of the
Electoral Act 2010 and paragraph 45 (4) of the
1st schedule that all applications must be in
writing.
“We are also aware of the content of paragraph
47 that the 1st respondent did not file his
response within the seven days period. The facts
before us are clear on this.
“Nevertheless, we have equally read Okechukwu
v. INEC and it is our position that for substantial
justice to be done in this petition is to allow the
1st respondent an extension of time to file and
serve his response to the petitioners.
“The aim of the tribunal is to see to it that
whether at the end, it can be said that justice
was done to the petition. The court of law is
bound to do substantial justice.”