…Says Judgment is Rape on Democray
By Francis Sadhere
Delta State House of Assembly candidate for Warri South Constituency 1under the umbrella of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the last general election, Barr. Robinson Ariyo has faulted the recent ruling by the tribunal sitting in Asaba which declared his opponent, Mr. Godwin Abigor, as winner of the election, saying that he is heading to the Court of Appeal to challenge the judgment.
Barrister Ariyo who stated this at a press conference in Warri today while reacting to the three man Tribunal judgment headed by Justice Mohammed Umar yesterday, said the judgment which sets aside the use of the card readers in the election was a rape on democracy.
He faulted the judgment of the tribunal which based its position on the fact that the card reader is not recognized by the Electoral Act of 2011 , adding that the judgment is against INECS guidelines of 2015 which stipulated that card readers must be used in the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.
He said: I have come to the conclusion that the judgment is most unfortunate and one which if the society is to grow, must be challenged at the level of supervisory court, and in this instance at the level of Court of Appeal. What exactly was the judgment based on? Sadly the entire judgment was based on the position that the use of card reader is unknown to our electoral law because it is not contained in the electoral act of 2011.
I want us to appreciate the fact that the intention of using card readers was to tract the irregularities that have characterized election malpractices in the past sixteen years. This particular tenure was the first opportunity accorded to Nigerians to correct this anomaly.
“It might interest you to know that, yes, there is no reference whatsoever to the card reader in the electoral act. Therefore, the question will be, why was the card reader introduced? The tribunal ruled that since the electoral act does not provide for the use of card reader, the printout which we relied on was therefore not supported by law.
He said that for the tribunal to squash his case on the ground that card readers are not recognized in the electoral act shows that all other elections conducted in the country with the use of the card readers were null and void.
He therefore, called for the cancellation of all elections that were held with the use of card readers in the country, stressing that going by the recent judgment all those that were brought to power through the use of the card readers in the last election, should be stripped off their positions.
I am aggrieved because the tribunal said, without anybody challenging it, that the card reader is not known to our law. And want a high court to tell us whether or not the use of card reader in the 2015 election was valid or not. We all know that 85% of the procedure in which these people were elected was the card reader. So, if you annul my election, you should also annul their election too. If it is illegal, it is illegal and what is good for the goose is also good for gander. You cannot take the process and give the gain to some people and deprive others. You cannot speak from both sides of your mouth. So it is either it is known to our law or not known to our law, he said.
He further explained that according to the INEC register from Abuja, which they have a copy, the total number of registered voters in Warri South Constituency 1, was 11,339 while the total votes scored by his opponent, Mr. Godwin Abigor was 12,513, a figure he said was far above the total number of registered voters.
He wondered how his opponent alone could have scored above the total number of registered voters during the election even when the law said that you cannot score above the total number of registered voters.
On the issue of over voting, Barr. Ariyo quoted the INEC 2015 guidelines which reads: Where the total number of votes cast at a polling unit exceeds the number of registered voters in the polling unit, the result of that election should be declared null and void. Similarly, where the total number of votes cast at a polling unit exceeds the total number of accredited voters, the outcome of the election shall be declared null and void.
