Supreme Court Affirms Dickson’s Victory

Nnamdi Felix / Abuja

Nigeria’s Supreme Court on Monday affirmed the victory of Governor Seriake Dickson and dismissed a suit filed by the Change Advocacy Party and its standard bearer, Mr. Imoro Kabbi, challenging the victory of Dickson in Bayelsa state gubernatorial election held last February.

Mr. Kabbi and his party had approached the apex court to challenge the nomination of Dickson insisting that he was not the standard bearer of the Peoples Democratic Party for the election.

Arguing through their counsel, Mr. Rickey Tarfa, a senior advocate of Nigeria, Kabbi and his party contended that there was a pending suit before the court against the primary election which brought in Dickson as the flag bearer of the PDP and prayed the court to void the said primary election.

In a judgment delivered by Justice Walter Onnoghen, the apex court upheld the nomination of Dickson by the PDP stating that the court would only be bound by the pleadings before it. He added that Section 177 of the 1999 Constitution as amended provided for what qualifies a person to contest for the position of a governor.

The court listed the qualifications as being a citizen of Nigeria by birth, such person must have attained 30 years of age, such person must be a member of political party and must have been duly nominated by such party and that such person must possess at least Secondary School Leaving Certificate.

It further held that the appellants contradicted themselves when they admitted that Dickson won the February 11th governorship.

“Evidence of qualification lies in the declaration of the party and the forwarding of a name to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, by the said party within a period not later than 60 days to the election. INEC received the name of the PDP candidate in the election on Dec 8,2011 for an election that is to hold on Febuary 11, 2012, this is more than 60 days which is within the law. Publication of name cannot invalidate the candidate’s nomination, once a candidate is nominated and his name forwarded to INEC,his candidacy cannot be substituted unless the person the candidate willingly opted out or he died. Once it has been established that candidate was nominated by a party and his name forwarded to INEC, it becomes sealed.” The court held

The court also held that the evidence tendered by the appellants are not admissible in law because they are electronic documents and was tendered from the bar, they ought to have done more on their evidence, it noted.

It went on to hold that there is no merit in the appeal and consequently dismissed the suit.