Presidential Election may be Stalled by Court Injuction

THE presidential election may not hold in April, going by a legal notice given by the Peoples Mandate Party (PMP).

The party has asked the Court of Appeal in Abuja to restrain the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from conducting the election pending the determination of a petition filed by the party candidates challenging the outcome of the 2007 presidential contest.

In a suit, the PMP, through its presidential candidate, Chief Arthur Nwankwo and his running mate, Comrade Mohammed Abdullahi, seek an order of interlocutory injunction, restraining the INEC from conducting fresh presidential election in the country on April 9, 2011 or any other date or otherwise taking any step towards conducting any election to the office of the President pending the determination of the petition they filed over the 2007 presidential election.

The petitioners also seek an order of interlocutory injunction, restraining President Goodluck Jonathan from presenting himself or allowing himself to be presented to INEC or any other authority, as a candidate in any presidential election to be held in the country on any date, until the petition, which is challenging his election, is concluded.Already, the Court of Appeal has fixed Tuesday, January 26, 2011 to entertain the suit.

At the end of the 2007 presidential election won by the late Umaru Yar’Adua and Dr. Goodluck Jonathan as his running mate, Nwankwo, a social crusader and Abdullahi had petitioned the Presidential Election Tribunal (Appeal Court) in Abuja, praying for the nullification of the election for alleged non-compliance with substantial sections of the Electoral Act 2006.

They also alleged corrupt practices in the exercise on the ground that both Yar’Adua and Jonathan were serving governors, and as such not qualified to contest at the time of the election.

On September 3, 2007, the Court of Appeal peremptorily struck out the petition, in which INEC was joined as a respondent.
But dissatisfied, Nwankwo and co had approached the Supreme Court, which on March 5, 2010 upheld their appeal and declared the ruling of the Court of Appeal null and void.

The Supreme Court consequently remitted the case to the Court of Appeal, to be determined on its merit by a fresh panel of Justices to be constituted by the President of the Court of Appeal.

Although the Court of Appeal recently constituted the panel to retry the petition, Nwankwo and co insist that the case was unnecessarily being delayed.

In a 12-point supporting affidavit to the fresh suit, sworn by Ifeanyi Igwe, the petitioners averred that their petition would be rendered nugatory and a mere academic exercise if the Respondents were not restrained from further election.

Source: The Guardian
They said they were prepared for a re-run presidential election in the event of the likely success of their petition.
The petitioners also averred that they made every effort to ensure the expeditious hearing of their petition from the date of filing in May 2007.

They contended that millions of their supporters were eagerly awaiting the outcome of the petition in order to participate in a re-run presidential election, as was the case in the successful gubernatorial election petitions in Cross River, Delta, Adamawa and Ekiti states, among others.

The petitioners stressed that holding a presidential election in Nigeria without determining their petition would amount to denying them and their supporters their constitutional rights to participate in such an exercise.

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