BY CLIFFORD NDUJIHE, Deputy Political Editor
WITH 17 Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN) on the prowl, the twin-battle to dispossess President Goodluck Jonathan of the presidential mandate he got on April 16 will continue today at the Presidential Election Tribunal (PET).

Headed by the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Isah Ayo Salami, the two petitions against Jonathan were filed by the Congress of Progressive Change (CPC) and Hope Democratic Party (HDP).

The tribunal held its inaugural sitting last  week with promises coming from all parties towards ensuring that justice is adequately dispensed and timely too.

Maj General Muhammadu Buhari of the CPC is in court with nine counsels including two SANs led by James Ochole (SAN).

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, leading two other SANs and 10 other lawyers to represent it. Another SAN, Joe Gadzama, is leading two other SANs and six other lawyers are to represent the ruling party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with Wole Olanipekun leading eight SANs and about 15 other lawyers to represent President Goodluck Jonathan and his vice, Mohammed Namadi Sambo.

The CPC wants the tribunal to cancel presidential election results in 24 out of the 36 states of the country and Abuja, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), nullify Jonathan’s victory and order a fresh poll between President Jonathan of the PDP and Buhari of CPC because the PDP allegedly rigged the April 16 exercise.

The states disputed by Buhari, who is on his third missionary journey to the PET, are all the 17 states in the South as well as Sokoto, Kaduna, Plateau, Kwara, Benue, Adamawa and Nasarawa in the North and FCT, Abuja.

Specifically, the CPC wants the election nullified on the grounds that INEC used two voters’ register for the presidential and governorship polls; significant number of ballot papers were missing; Jonathan and Sambo were not duly elected in 24 states and Abuja and so did not secure one-third of votes cast in at least 24 states of the federation and the FCT; and so the tribunal should direct INEC Chairman, professor Attahiru Jega to arrange another election between Buhari and Jonathan in conformity with the provision of Section 134 (4) of the 1999 Constitution.

To prove its case, CPC National Legal Adviser, Abubakar Malami, said the party would hire a foreign firm to scrutinise the ballot papers used at the polls, to fish out rigged ballots.

He said: “Since during the voters’ registration exercise, all the 10 fingerprints of all voters were captured and stored in INEC’s Standard Data Bank, it is certain that every voter must have used a finger to vote in the election. This then makes it possible to authenticate and verify every print on every ballot. An electro-mechanical optical scan device with automatic tabulation called a ‘mark-sensing’ system will be used; in this case the mark is the fingerprint.”

Countering, PDP National Publicity Secretary, Professor Rufai Ahmed Alkali, said the ruling party was ready to meet Buhari and the CPC in court to show that it won the presidential polls and deserved it victory.

Noting that the court process diverts the attention of elected officials from the onerous duty before them, Alkali said the PDP was eager to meet the opposition party in court, get the litigation thrashed out and the system stabilised “so that Mr. President and our governors will be allowed to do the work they want for the country.”

It was on this note that both parties met at the tribunal last week and proceedings commenced.

Discordant tunes in CPC

However before proceedings could commence fully, discordant tunes started playing out in the CPC with sections of the leadership dissociating themselves from the petition and getting hammered in the process by the CPC hierarchy. And the move is raising questions on how far the CPC, which is a year old as a party could go at the tribunal.

At a press conference held at Excellence Hotel, Ogba, last week, 17 chairmen of the party in southern parts of the country, in a statement read Dr Sylvester Igwilo (Anambra CPC chairman), kicked against Buhari and the CPC petition, saying that the elections were free and fair and that President Jonathan won.

Congratulating Jonathan, they said the absence of campaign funds and poor campaigns cost CPC the polls in the South

Among others, they said: “We have undertaken a critical appraisal of the just-concluded general elections held last month, and most importantly the presidential election, and now observe as follows: That the elections witnessed a huge turn-out of voters in their renewed desire to choose their representatives. That the conduct of the electorate at the polls was largely peaceful and patriotic. That the security agencies rose sufficiently to meet the threat of violence by adopting proactive measures, though there were some post-election crises in some parts of the country.

That party candidates demonstrated the spirit for a new political dawn with many losers accepting to support the people’s choice in the character of sportsmanship. That the incumbent Administration led by Dr. Goodluck Ebele Jonathan (GCFR) has created a level-playing field  for the conduct of free, fair and credible elections, which is a remarkable departure from the past. That  by its neutrality, the Administration facilitated the work of the Electoral Commission, which  in turn received high marks from  international  and local observers, as well as unbiased Nigerians.”

They continued: “We strongly condemn the post-election crises in some parts of the country that resulted in the killing of 10 innocent Youth Corpers, other citizens, the burning of houses, mosques and churches, among others.  We offer our condolences to the affected families, organizations and the President of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. There can be no justification whatsoever for the orgy of violence and associated loss of lives and property, in the aftermath of the presidential elections. Accordingly, we unequivocally dissociate ourselves from the statement attributed to the Abubakar Malami, Legal Adviser of our party, who sought to explain away the serial arson and wanton murders during the riots.

It is our firm belief that, if CPC supporters nationwide were truly dissatisfied with the outcome of the presidential election, it remains curious why the riots occurred only in some parts of the North of the country. We suspect, as stakeholders of the party in the South, comprising three zones in the country, we may have been deliberately left out of the game-plan of the CPC, including the post-election violence, because certain persons reasoned, and correctly too, that we could never have subscribed to such evil plan to take the law into our own hands, by wasting the lives of innocent citizens.

“We are honest enough to discard partisan interest, and instead admit that our party, the Congress for Progressive Change, had neither firm root nor solid branches in the three geopolitical zones in the country,  and accordingly the party did not mount any serious campaign in the three zones  of the South during the recent elections.

“The absence of campaign materials in terms of vehicles, campaign logistics, etc., was clear evidence of not only poor preparation but that our party did not reckon that three zones in the South would matter in the victory calculus of our party’s candidate in the presidential election. Taking cognizance of his vigorous campaigns, and the free and fair atmosphere that characterized the voting, and the spread  and tally of his votes, we congratulate the President, Dr Goodluck Ebele Jonathan, on his resounding victory in the April 16 presidential election that has been adjudged the best so far in Nigeria’s political history.

“We are of the strong view that any recourse to the Election Petitions Tribunal is not only an unconscionable waste of resources, which the party ought to expend in building new structures and growing its root, but also an exercise in futility, and one that will waste the otherwise valuable time of the judiciary. Accordingly, we, stakeholders and leaders of the CPC in the three geopolitical zones of the South_West, South-East, and South-South do hereby dissociate ourselves from the petition in respect of the presidential election of April 16.”

South-West CPC recants

A day after, leaders of the CPC in South-West zone, dissociated themselves from their purported withdrawal from the petition challenging Jonathan’s victory. The National Vice Chairman, Mr Rasaq Muse, said the party would pursue its case to a logical conclusion at the tribunal.

“South-West CPC supported the decision of our great party to go to court and therefore, we stand by that decision 101 per cent and we are unshaken until the fraud committed by the PDP is exposed,” they said.

Indeed, Malami had recently dismissed the South-East and South-South chairmen as sell outs over their comments that the elections were credible  a day after the presidential polls

CPC NEC last Thursday in a statement  by its National Publicity Secretary, Rotimi Fashakin expelled all members of the party that dissociated themselves from the petition..

CPC

Questions, hurdles before CPC

With the discordant tunes, questions are being asked on how the CPC hope to surmount legal hurdles at the tribunal.

For instance, how would it get witnesses in the South-South and South-East to argue its case since it has little or no structure in these parts of the country?

Is the party saying that the polls were only credible in states where it won? Is the South-West leaders saying the elections were also rigged in south-West?

Countering the notion that the party might be wasting scare resources it could use to build party structures on the petition, Malami said the CPC was sure of coming out victorious at the tribunal.

According to him, the party’s move should be supported by all Nigerians because it could end the era of rigging in the country.

It is to be seen how far the CPC would go to stop President Jonathan.