Kingsley Kanayo
The All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) has condemned the recent ruling by the tribunals in Anambra and Abia states, for dismissing the party’s petition based on trivial reasons.
The party said there is an urgent need to rejig the country’s electoral laws to reduce the cumbersome process involved in trying to obtain justice in election cases.
The National Chairman of APGA, Chief Victor Oye who spoke in an interview with journalists at the weekend said the review of the electoral laws has become necessary, especially the aspect that required a petitioner to prove his case beyond reasonable doubt in election petition.
Oye lamented that the current Electoral Act makes it extremely difficult for those challenging outcomes of elections to have a fair hearing.
According to him, there were cases, including those of National Assembly elections, where the party had incontrovertible evidence that the party won the elections, but the tribunal ruled that the petitioner (APGA) has failed to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt.
He said the clause, beyond reasonable doubt, is usually exploited by chairmen of tribunals to upturn justice and to perpetuate corruption in the judicial system, especially in electoral matters.”We can’t take it again that our members will be chastised by the INEC. We are prepared for the Borno Central Senatorial polls, the Niger state local government polls, the Bayelsa governorship polls and Kogi governorship polls, and we are convinced that we will do exploits in these elections”, he said.
He condemned the recent ruling by the tribunals in Anambra and Abia states, especially with the kind of judgment the tribunal delivered so far, which he accused of dismissing clear evidences by the party based on trivial reasons.
He described what transpired during the election as scandalous. He however said that since the tribunal has ordered a re- run in two local government areas, APGA will prepare itself for the election with the hope of reclaiming the mandate it got from the people.
With specially reference to the ruling at the Abia South election tribunal, he said the party is greatly pained about the judgement given by the judges,
Oye said the party is not happy with some of the outcome of the election petition.
__________
Follow us on Twitter at @thesignalng
Copyright 2015 SIGNAL. Permission to use portions of this article is granted provided appropriate credits are given to www.signalng.com and other relevant sources.
