UPDATED: S’Court D-Day For Delta Announced: Can Omo-Agege Upstage Oborevwori On Friday?

Final, the Supreme Court, has announced Friday January 19, 2024 to deliver judgment on governorship election dispute involving Delta State.

BIGPEN NIGERIA (https://bigpenngr.com) reports that Deputy Director of Press and Information of the Supreme Court, Malam Alfa Ahmed, confirmed this in a statement on Thursday.

He said that 13 judgments would be deliver on Friday including that of Delta State, earlier reported to have been scheduled for Tuesday.

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BIGPEN NIGERIA (https://bigpenngr.com) reports that the Supreme Court had earlier reserved its judgement on the appeals brought before it challenging INEC’s declaration of Oborevwori’s as winner of the March 18 election.

After determining, last week, seven governorship election cases including those of Plateau, Zamfara, Lagos and Kano States, it reserved judgment for Delta, extending the cliffhanger on the status of the March 18, 2023 guber electoral contest between Rt. Hon. Sheriff Oborovweri and his rivals, Rt. Hon. Ovie Omo-Agege of All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Kenneth Gbagi of Social Democratic Party (SDP) and Mr. Ken Pela of the Labour Party (LP).

The victory of Oborevwori, at both the Election Petition Tribunal and the Court of Appeal, has not allayed fears of an unfavorable gavel at the Supreme Court, a development that has disabled his right leg from “firing down” on the accelerator of the governance vehicle in the state.

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At the other end, the losses in the lower courts have equally not dampened the go-getter spirit of the APC’s Omo-Agege whose expectations of victory were deep to the moment before the apex court verdict on the said states.

The SDP’s Kenneth Gbagi had also remained upbeat that the Supreme Court “would save Delta State from collapse” even as LP’s Ken Pela hopes for a total cancelation of the polls that produced Oborevwori.

BIGPEN’s checks indicate that the Supreme Court verdict on the Kano State Guber polls already sent shivers through the camps of Oborevwori’s rivals. They are worried if, by the Kano verdict on what appears to be a similar case, Omo-Agege’s convictions of victory can stand.

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In the first place, Omo-Agege’s hopes are based on some 36,000 votes that exceed the accreditation threshold and which he claims were wrongly allocated to Oborevwori.

He believes that the overvoting of 36,000, in 144 polling units violates Section 51 (2) of the 2022 Electoral Act and such unit results attract cancellation.

Secondly, Omo-Agege insists that by Section 73 (2) of the extant Electoral Act, over 100,000 ballots/votes in 1,333 polling units, would have to be invalidated for not having serial numbers as required by the Act. The section states: “An election conducted at a polling unit without the prior recording in the forms prescribed by the Commission of the quantity, serial numbers and other particulars of results sheets, ballot papers and other sensitive electoral materials made available by the Commission for conduct of the election shall be invalid”.

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A further 24,000 votes allocated to Oborevwori, says Omo-Agege’s camp, are invalid votes arising from various other infractions, completing total of about 160,000 votes that may be deducted from Oborevwori’s about 360,000 votes at the polls. Since the margin of victory as declared by INEC is just about 120,000 votes, Omo-Agege’s camp believes that a 160,000 votes deduction from Oborevwori/PDP votes would get Omo-Agege’s APC ahead, to victory.

Chief Gbagi, on his part, believes that Oborevwori and indeed all other contestants are not qualified to contest, abi initio.

But Justice John Inyang Okoro’s verdict on the Kano State gubernatorial election appears to have heightened the suspense, and the fears of the political rival camps of Governor Oborevwori. With no serious media attention on the Labour Party Ken Pela’s challenge, not much is known on the weight of his case and his chances of victory.

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But if Justice Inyang Okoro’s verdict on the Kano guber election challenge in court is pointer of things to come, any case hinged on disqualification of candidates may be headed for the rocks. Justice Okoro was reported to have allegedly noted, in the unanimous verdict on Kano State: “The issue of nomination of candidates is exclusively the internal affairs of a political party. Therefore, it is not justiciable,” he said, stressing that efforts to challenge the nomination of a candidate for an election by another party comes to nought.

On the issue of ballot papers/votes not marked or signed by INEC or its officials, in use in the polls in Kano, Justice Okoro in the unanimous verdict, had posited: “I have found that the decision of the tribunal to deduct 165,616 votes from the governor’s results was based on provisions of the Electoral Act 2022,” adding: “The provision does not regulate actions at the polling units. What is the effect of a ballot paper not having the marks by the Electoral commission?”

Restoring the votes to Mr Yusuf, the Supreme Court ruled that “A ballot paper that does not bear INEC marks is not invalid by all purposes. It must be proven that the ballot papers were not the ones deployed for the conduct of the election” before the court can void them.

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“There is no proof that the said ballot papers were not the ones used at the election. Thus, the decision of the Court of Appeal affirming the decision of the tribunal ought to be set aside,” Mr Okoro said of the Kano Governorship polls.

Justice Okoro’s pronouncement, indeed the Supreme Court’s unanimous verdict on the Kano State guber electoral challenge, has come across as worrisome to the Omo-Agege camp. True, Justice Okoro admits Electoral Act at Section 73 (2) said “an election conducted at a polling unit without prior recording in the forms prescribed by the Commission of the quantity, serial numbers and other particulars of results sheets, ballot papers and other sensitive electoral materials made available by the Commission for the conduct of the election shall be voided”. In the Kano judgment, a lot of pundits who spoke to BIGPEN NIGERIA said Justice Okoro went for substantial justice rather technicalities when he argued that the ballots can only be voided if there is proof that same were not the ballots deployed and used for the election, lack of INEC marks notwithstanding.

The fears at the Omo-Agege camp speaking in hushed tones stem from thoughts that his main case seems, repeat seems on all fours with that of Kano State in the important area of INEC marks or serial numbers. Will a Supreme Court panel led by Justice Okoro or their Lordships cancel the over 100,000 votes he hopes to deduct from Oborevwori’s total votes, which have no serial numbers? Or will their Lordships hold as Justice Okoro did that provided the ballots where used for the election, it does not matter if they lack serial numbers?

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Since deduction of 36,000 alleged overvoting plus 24,000 other votes tainted by alleged infractions, totalling about 60,000 votes cannot cancel Oborevwori’s lead and victory, where does Omo-Agege’s hopes lie? Where does SDP’s Chief Gbagi’s hopes lie when legal precedents that qualification challenge is the exclusive preserve or internal affair of a political party?

The suspense is over in hours as the Supreme Court gavels the winner, Friday, January 19, 2024!

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