The Supreme Court has laid to rest all the appeals challenging the election of Umar Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as Adamawa State Governor.
In a judgement on Wednesday, a five-member panel of Justices of the apex court unanimously dismissed the appeal by the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last governorship election in the state, Aisha Ahmed Dahiru, also known as Binani.
In the lead judgment, delivered by Justice John Inyang Okoro, who presided over the panel, the court held that the declaration of Aisha Dahiru as the winner of the election by the state’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) was unlawful and a nullity.
Justice Okoro further held that it was the Returning Officer of any election that is empowered by the Electoral Act to announce the results of an election and that any other person, who assumes that rules, acts illegally .
He also held that the appellants (Aisha Dahiru and the APC) failed to provide credible evidence to show their claim of non-compliance with the relevant laws in the conduct of the election and that she won the election with majority of lawful votes cast during the election.
The Apex Court held that Binani’s petition lacked merit and consequently dismissed in its entirety, adding that Binani engaged in self deceit by hanging to the unlawful and unconstitutional acts of the Resident Electoral Commissioner to hold herself out as winner of the governorship election.
The apex court emphatically held that the REC had no power under any known law to declare election results as he did in the Adamawa state governorship election results.
The Supreme Court said that the mere declaration of Binani and APC as winners by the REC was not in any way helpful to them, adding that the REC ought to have appeared before the Adamawa State Election Petition Tribunal to give evidence, defend and justify the declaration he made.
“From the evidence adduced, the election of March 18 was inconclusive. A supplementary election was ordered and conducted. While the results of the supplementary election was being awaited, the REC did what he did.
“The questions are why was the Resident Electoral Commissioner so hasty, what motivated him, why did he take up the function of the Returning Officer?.
“The REC ought to have been a vital witness for the appellants (Binani and APC) to make some clarifications. In his absence, there is nothing the Court can do.
“It must however be clearly stated here that the REC acted ultra vires. He is not competent to announce election results. It is the express duty of INEC to give duty and responsibility and by evidence here, the duty was donated to the Returning Officer.
“By that singular act, it is the Returning Officer and no other person that can announce election results. It is exclusively for the Returning Officer.
“The announcement of the results by the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the instant case, is illegal, unlawful, null and void.
He acted with unbridled effontry. It is an act of irresponsibility and criminality and should not be allowed.
“It is only the Returning Officer that is vested with power to make declaration of election results and this is to avoid chaos”, Justice Okoro held and warned public officers to always act within the law in the discharge of responsibilities and not get carried away by greed adding that acting in contrary to the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act in the discharge of public duties is completely illegal.
In the absence of evidence of scoring a majority of lawful votes, Justice Okoro dismissed Binani’s petition and upheld the concurrent findings of the Adamawa State Election Petitions Tribunal and the Court of Appeal which had earlier dismissed the petition by Binani and her party.
The Court of Appeal in Abuja had on Monday December 18, 2023 dismissed the petition by the APC and its governorship candidate, Senator Aisha Dahiru.
The Appellate Court held that Governor Fintiri was lawfully declared the winner of the poll by the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
A judgment written by Justice Tunde Oyebanji Awotoye threw out the case of Binani and APC on various grounds of abnormalities.
Among the grounds, the Appeal Court held that Binani and APC failed to call polling agents who participated in the conduct of the election as witnesses but unfortunately called Campaign Coordinators who were not at the election venue.
Justice Awotoye said the three witnesses called to establish malpractices in 27 Local Government Areas who were Campaign Coordinators are mere hearsay witnesses having not been party agents.
The Court held that it is against the law to attach probate values to the testimony of the Campaign Coordinators since such is worthless in the face of the law.
Besides, Justice Awotoye said that the brief of argument filed by Binani and APC was in contravention of the law, hence, incompetent and deserved to be ignored.
Also, Justice Awotoye held that the records of appeal transmitted to the Court of Appeal by Binani and APC were not complete and insufficient for the Court to make any finding and declared as an illegal act the declaration of Binani and APC as winners of the election adding that the only authority to make a declaration is the Returning Officer.
The unanimous judgment dismissed the appeal in its entirety and awarded a cost of N1 million to be paid to Fintiri and PDP by Binani and APC.
The Adamawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal had, in October last year, dismissed the petition filed by Binani seeking Fintiri’s sack from office.
It would be recalled that the apex court had, on January 10, dismissed the appeal filed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its governorship candidate, Dr Umar Ardo, against Fintiri’s election.
Ardo and his party had approached the apex court with an appeal seeking to set aside the concurrent judgements of the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, Abuja which earlier upheld the election victory of Fintiri.
When the matter was called on Wednesday, Ardo’s counsel, Mr Sylvester Imahnobe, while responding to questions from the five – member panel of Justices led by Justice John Inyang Okoro, told the apex court that his client who scored over 6,000 votes in the said election would have won in a proper election.
The Appellants wanted the court to annul the election that produced Fintiri as the Governor of Adamawa state on the ground of non-compliance to the Electoral Act.
A member of the panel, Justice Emmanuel Agim asked the counsel how substantially has the non-compliance affected the outcome of the election or the integrity of the election process, but the counsel could not prove how the alleged non-compliance affected the election results.
Justice Okoro, on his part, told the counsel that the question raised by his brother Justice on the panel goes a long way to show that the appeal is incompetent.
Getting the hint from the court, Imahnobe then applied for the withdrawal of the appeal, a request that was not opposed by the respondents in the appeal.
Consequently, Justice Okoro dismissed the appeal marked, SC/CV/1219/2023 for want of merit.