The Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja over the governorship election in Ekiti State, on Friday ruled that Governor Ayodele Fayose was actually the winner of the governorship election held in June as declared by the Independent National Election Commission, INEC, last June.
According to the panel, the petitioner’s witnesses could not convince the panel with the right evidence to show that there were some corrupt practices at the polling units.
The panel also said it was not convinced that the election did not comply substantially with the provisions of the Electoral Act.
The panel said the issue of whether Fayose was qualified or not was already in court before the election and as such, it has not jurisdiction over it.
The panel ruled that the petitioner failed to produce witnesses from most of the polling units to substantiate the allegation of improper or non-accreditation of voters at the polling units saying this did not help the petition from the All Progressives Congress.
The tribunal said the testimonies of the APC witnesses were unsatisfactory and their inability to give the names of the polling units as well as the names of their agents at those unnamed polling units shows that most of them that gave evidence of these alleged non compliance did not vote at the election and as such their testimonies failed to support their claims.
“None of them gave evidence on the improper accreditation or manipulation of accreditation,” the panel said.
“The petitioner failed to substantiate the allegation of improper accreditation or non accreditation of voters, ” the tribunal ruled further ruling against the argument by the APC that the Ekiti governorship election was systematically and scientifically rigged by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) by using indelible photo-chronic and vanishing inks that fades within minutes in such a way to favour the emergence of the PDP candidate at the election.
The tribunal ruled that section 19 and 20 of the Electoral Act provides for the display of the voters register 30 days to the election, thus a careful political party should have complained against any failure by the electoral umpire to comply with that provision and insist that the issue of contravention of code of conduct, like the issue of Fayose’s non qualification, falls within those issues considered as pre election issues.
The tribunal said the inclusion of the Inspector-General of Police and the Chief of Army Staff in the petition were not necessary since they are not included by the provisions of section 137(2) and (3) of the Electoral Act where the classes of respondents in an election petition are listed.
