
August 3, 2015
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- Law News
The Taraba State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja has rejected a request by the Independent National Electoral Commission to relocate to the state capital, Jalingo, to continue its proceedings.
The President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Zainab Bilkachuwa, had directed some election petitions tribunal in some states, including Taraba, to relocate to Abuja over security concerns.
The Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Musa Abubakar, in a ruling on Saturday, dismissed INEC’s motion challenging the tribunal’s jurisdiction to sit in Abuja and hear a petition filed by the All the All Progressives Congress and its candidate in the April 11, 2015 governorship election, Hajia Aisa Alhassan.
Justice Abubakar held that the tribunal was validly constituted by the Court of Appeal President in line with her constitutional powers.
INEC had, in its motion, argued that the tribunal ought to sit in the state where the election was held and that the President of the Court of Appeal lacked the power to move the tribunal to sit in any other location.
It also contended that the state’s legislative election tribunal was currently sitting in Jalingo, so there was no basis to move the governorship election petitions tribunal to Abuja.
But in its ruling, the tribunal upheld the argument by lawyer to the petitioners, Mahmud Magaji (SAN), to the effect that since INEC was, by its motion, challenging the Court of Appeal President’s exercise of her constitutional power, the electoral body should have gone before the Federal High Court, to file an action in that regard.
The petitioners are challenging the outcome of the last governorship election in Taraba State, won by Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Alhassan and her party are of the view that the election was marred with irregularities. They want the election to be voided.
Magaji’s request for the tribunal to proceed with the hearing of his clients’ petition was opposed by lawyers to the respondents – Ishaku, PDP and INEC.
While Magaji was of the view that the tribunal could hear the petition along with the motions challenging the competence of the petition, respondents’ lawyers, led by former Attorney General of the Federation (AGF), Kanu Agabi (SAN), urged the tribunal to act otherwise.
They contended that it was the tradition that a court or tribunal must first deal with motions challenging the competence of a petition or a suit before assuming jurisdiction over such a suit or petition.
They argued that the tribunal must first determine whether or not the petition was competent for it to determine whether or not to exercise its jurisdiction to hear it.
Magaji, in a counter argument, cited the provision of Paragraph 12(5) of the First Schedule to the Electoral Act which, he said, made it mandatory for an election tribunal to hear any objection to the competence of a petition along with the petition.
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