The Supreme Court on Tuesday affirmed
Ayodele Fayose as the winner and the duly elected governor of Ekiti
State in the June 21, 2014 election.
In a unanimous decision by the seven-man
panel led by Justice John Fabiyi, the apex court upheld the earlier
decisions of the Court of Appeal and the Ekiti State Governorship
Election Tribunal, both of which had earlier ruled that the petition
challenging Fayose’s victory lacked merit.
In the lead judgment delivered by
Justice Sylvester Ngwuta, the apex court dismissed all the grounds of
appeal filed by the petitioner – the All Progressives Congress – and
resolved all four issues arising from the appeal against the party. “All the issues having been resolved
against the appellant, the appeal is devoid of merit and it is my order
that the same be, and is hereby, dismissed in its entirety,” Justice
Ngwuta ruled.
Justice Fabiyi and other members of the
panel – Justices Suleiman Galadima, Olabode Rhodes-Vivour, Clara
Ogunbiyi, Kumai Aka’ahs and John Okoro – all agreed with the lead
judgment. A former governor of Ekiti State and
National Deputy Chairman of the APC (South), Mr. Segun Oni, was the only
notable member of the party that was present when the judgment was
delivered at the Supreme Court on Tuesday.
The Independent National Electoral
Commission had declared that Fayose of the Peoples Democratic Party
polled 203,090 votes to defeat the then incumbent governor, Dr. Kayode
Fayemi, of the APC who polled 120,433 votes in the election.Dissatisfied with the results declared
by the INEC, the APC had filed a petition, urging the Ekiti State
Governorship Election Petition Tribunal which sat in Abuja to nullify
the election.
The APC was the sole petitioner in the
petition excluding its candidate, Fayemi, who had earlier congratulated
Fayose immediately after the results of the election were announced.The petitioner had anchored its case on
the grounds of alleged intimidation of its leaders by the military,
ineligibility of Fayose to stand for the election because he was
previously impeached as governor of the state in 2006 and the allegation
that the PDP candidate forged his Higher National Diploma certificate
presented to INEC.
The Justice Siraju-Mohammed-led tribunal
had in its verdict delivered on December 19, 2014, dismissed the
petition for lacking in merit. The Justice Abdul Aboki-led five-man
panel of the Court of Appeal, which also sat in Abuja, on April 15, 2015
affirmed the decision of the tribunal. But the appellate court condemned the
deployment of soldiers who allegedly harassed and intimidated APC
leaders during the election. The APC had further appealed to the Supreme Court having been dissatisfied with the Court of Appeal’s decision.
The Supreme Court held in its judgment on Tuesday that none of the grounds of appeal was proved by the appellant. The judgment dwelt extensively on the
impeachment of Fayose on October 16, 2006, describing it as “an exercise
in futility” given the illegality that characterised it. The apex court held that though
impeachment was not one of the grounds of disqualification for standing
for an election unders section 182(1) of the Constitution, the findings
of the impeachment panel over alleged contravention of code of conduct
by Fayose could not be relied on.
It added that that the impeachment panel
which recommended Fayose for impeachment on October 16, 2006, was
illegally and unconstitutionally constituted. Justice Ngwuta held that the purported
impeachment of Fayose was an exercise in futility as the House of
Assembly illegally appointed an Acting Chief Judge who set up another
impeachment panel after an earlier one had given Fayose a clean bill of
health. “The finding of guilt made against the
2nd respondent (Fayose) is not worth the paper on which it was written,”
the apex court held. Justice Ngwuta explained, “What is the
status of the impeachment panel that purportedly found the 2nd
respondent (Fayose) guilty of a contravention of the Code of Conduct?
“It is on record that earlier, at the
request of the Ekiti State House of Assembly the Chief Judge of the
state constituted a panel to investigate allegations against the 2nd
respondent. “It would appear that the House did not
substantiate the allegation levelled against the 2nd respondent and so
the impeachment panel gave him a clean bill of health as it were. “This should have ended the matter in compliance with section 188(8) of the Constitution. “Contrary to the mandatory provision,
the Ekiti House of Assembly, in apparent witch hunt, procured a judge in
the Ekiti State judiciary to set up a second and unconstitutional panel
to investigate the 2nd respondent (Fayose) a second time.
It is on
record that the then Chief Justice of Nigeria wrote to the judge to say
that his purported appointment as Acting Chief Judge of Ekiti State was
unconstitutional and so null and void.” On the issue of militarisation and
harassment of leaders of the APC, the Supreme Court held that the Chief
of Defence Staff and the Inspector-General of Police, joined as 4th and
5th defendants in the case, were not necessary parties and were rightly
struck out by the tribunal.
The apex court held that the issue of
deployment of soldiers in the conduct of the June 21, 2014 election was
not an issue properly presented before the tribunal and the Court of
Appeal and such the lower court’s (Court of Appeal’s) comment on it had
no force of law. It also held that the actions of the men
and officers of the two defendants that allegedly harassed the APC
leaders during the election and whose names were not mentioned could
also not be answerable for by the INEC as stipulated by the Electoral
Act.
The court held, “At best what the appellant dubbed crucial finding of the Court of Appeal is a mere comment which amounts to obiter dictum. “Obiter dictum cannot be the basis for raising a ground of appeal from which can be framed. The comment is not a ratio decidendi of the decision appealed against.”
It also held that the allegation of
certificate forgery had been caught by the principle of “issue estoppel”
as it had been laid to rest since 2004 by the Court of Appeal’s
judgment in the case of Alliance for Democracy against Fayose. According to the apex court, the Court
of Appeal had in the said judgment held that the HND certificate was
genuinely earned by and awarded to Fayose.
Meanwhile, there was widespread jubilation in Ado Ekiti over Fayose’s victory at the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The people erupted in joy immediately
news filtered into town that Fayose had won. Residents trooped out in
their hundreds to join other PDP’s supporters who had gathered near the
Government House.
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