Storm in Agagu’s tea cup
There is no doubt that Justice Garba Nabaruna and four other members of the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal, which sacked Governor Olusegun Agagu of the Peoples Democratic Party, are the most hated persons among the supporters of Agagu, at least for now. The PDP state chapter, which had hitherto never raised any allegation of bias or bribery against the tribunal, was shocked at the declarative judgment which pronounced Dr. Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party as the duly elected governor of the Sunshine State following the April 14,2007 governorship poll.
Nabaruma’s ‘unpardonable sin’ is that his panel heaped the deluge of votes turned in, in favour of Agagu into the garbage bin and declared the Iroko of Ondo politics the winner. With the cancellation of 220,219 votes?allegedly cast in favour of Agagu and ?27,752 cast for Mimiko, the state PDP leadership claimed that the tribunal erred by declaring Mimiko the winner. The argument of the party leadership is that since about 50 per cent of the total votes cast were cancelled, a fresh election should have been ordered throughout the state.
Although Agagu said immediately after the judgment that he accepted the verdict, he had expressed dissatisfaction and vowed to regain his mandate at the Court of Appeal. Suffice it to say that the PDP and Agagu’s aides have been pouring invectives on the tribunal for declaring Agagu’s archrival?as the winner of the election. ?
The state PDP chairman, Dr. Tayo Dairo; Special Adviser on Politics to the Governor, Chief Segun Adegoke; Chairman, Ondo State Electricity Board; Mr. Femi Fasawe, Minister of Culture and Tourism, Prince Tokunbo Kayode , Prince John Mafo, the state Commissioner for Information, Chief Eddy Olafeso, and other PDP leaders have all condemned the? July 25 judgment. Agagu’s supporters, including lawyers among them, have not spared the tribunal in their attacks.
The PDP chairman said that as the party awaits for the appeal tribunal to do justice to Agagu’s grounds?of appeal and returns his mandate to him, the public must be made to know about “moral and political questions that put the integrity of the tribunal into doubt.” While condemning the verdict which many allies of the governor perceived as jaundiced, Dairo who contested for? the party’s ticket to represent Ondo Central Senatorial District at the Senate said, “The verdict ?has raised very serious and weighty legal and moral, as well as political issues that deserve public attention. The legal issues raised would, of course, soon be a matter for the Appeal Court to examine and consider. The moral and political issues, on the other hand, are in the realms of the curious and the absurd that affront fairness and equity.”
Dairo, a medical doctor, condemned the panel for nullifying, either in whole or?part, the election results obtained from 10 out? of the 18 local government areas.? He argued that the panel ought to have ordered a re-run, which he claimed, Mimiko also prayed for in his petition. According to Dairo, whose constituency was won by the LP, “It must be curious to all discerning minds that the bulk of the nullified results came from Governor Agagu’s stronghold, the Ondo South Senatorial District, which constituted the governor’s home base.”?
The PDP expressed its dissatisfaction that, while the tribunal nullified election results from Agagu’s strong areas, it upheld results from areas which Mimiko performed well, even in the disputed area. He noted that the tribunal’s decision was ridiculous because Agagu called witnesses who testified?before it that free and fair election indeed took place in areas which results were nullified.
?Apart from aborting the live transmission of the judgment which nearly caused heart attack to many politicians whose ‘pot of soup’ were broken by the verdict, the PDP is also annoyed with Nabaruma for not reading the whole judgment. The sudden verbal onslaught of the PDP against the tribunal came to many as a surpsise. This is because the party had never raised an eyebrow at the second tribunal headed by Justice Joseph Ikyegh, over similar situations when it determined petitions filed before it.? The Ikyegh- led tribunal, which was noted for its “taken as read,” abridged some? of its judgments to save time. But Dairo said that Nabaruma had no excuse for not reading the 607-page judgment. Dairo said that having blacked out the public from following the judgement, Nabaruma also denied those present at the tribunal to hear the details of the judgment.
The PDP also cried foul that the over 607-page? judgment was not given to Agagu’s counsels ??two hours after the verdict was read. For failing to make the judgment available immediately after it was read, Dairo insinuated that the judgment might have been doctored in order to frustrate Agagu’s appeal. He stated, “The Tribunal had all the time in this world to prepare the judgment prior to its delivery. It could, therefore, not have been working on, or is it re-writing, it unless it had to do so to conform the text to the apparently absurd verdict.”?
The aggrieved PDP chairman also accused the tribunal of closing its eyes to an important legal requirement that a petitioner must?prove their allegations beyond reasonable doubt especially? criminal content? of the petitioner’s allegations. He is of the opinion that the tribunal did not require Mimiko to prove the criminal allegations in his petitions? according to the provisions of the? Electoral Act 2006, but that the tribunal assumed that the petitioner had proved them.? Such assumption, Dairo said, were “not permitted in law, which means in effect that the tribunal’s verdict cannot stand even on this basis alone.”
On his part, Fasawe described members of the tribunal as jesters. He argued that it contradicted its earlier judgments which upheld results of House of Assembly poll and nullified the governorship election results in the same constituency. He is annoyed that votes from the constituencies in Ile-Oluji/Oke-Igbo, were cancelled by Nabaruma. Fasawe’s ?argument is that the tribunal ought to have nullify or upheld the results of the two polls, since the elections were conducted the same day and ballot papers dropped inside the same boxes. ?He said, “It is quite unfathomable that the tribunal could ride rough-shod on the genuine wishes and aspirations of the people, particularly voters whose votes were nullified so as to award Mimiko an underserved victory, which in no time will become vague since it was a pyrrhic victory.
“The decision of the judges to nullify results from the PDP stronghold of Ondo South Senatorial District in order to create a window for Mimiko smacks of a jaundiced perception of basic tenets of law. How could they decide to disenfranchise some voters as if their votes do not count? This is a sufficient ground for the appellate court to discard with their foul judgment which is premised on bias and crass gluttony.”
But political allies of Mimiko and LP members are not keeping quiet over the vituperations of PDP men on the tribunal. They accuse the latter of being a bad loser in the face of overwhelming evidence agaist them. Many of them see the storm in Agagu’s tea cup as the real test for the respect for democratic ethos by the governor and his supporters. They have advised Agagu and his supporters ?to appeal the verdict and stop passing uncomplimentary remarks at the judiciary. The spokesman for the LP queried those castigating the tribunal to remember when Agagu was desperately in need of witnesses to testify in his favour during the sitting of the tribunal.
The spokesman of the party in the state, Mr. Kolawole Olabisi, said the PDP leaders were not sincere in their outbursts, as they had failed to address critical issues that culminated in the judgment of the tribunal. He said, “The Governor-elect, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko, proved beyond reasonable doubt that he was the duly elected governor of the state. Dr. Mimiko called credible witnesses who testified that election was either marred with irregularities or failed to hold in the contested areas.? The Governor-elect also used science to show that there was multiple registration, multiple voting ballot stuffing and all manner of irregularities in these areas where they turned in concocted figures with the collaboration of INEC. Dr. Mimiko did not mind the cost; he brought in one of the renowned hand writing and finger print experts from Britain who carried out scientific analysis on over 100,000 ballot papers. His results also proved that?irregularities marred the voting exercise as he discovered that pebbles, candle ends, cashew nut and other inanimate objects were used to thumbprint. So, you expect the tribunal to close its eyes to those evidence”
“Where were those who are calling for the heads of the tribunal members when Agagu could not bring witnesses. Those, who they assembled, were regarded as? political office holders, who turned themselves to party agents and failed to come out to defend themselves at the tribunal. Now, they are making noise. They are not surprised that Mimiko was declared the winner of the poll. They knew what they did at the poll; the stolen mandate has been returned to the rightful owner.”
?Olabisi also accused the PDP?of double standard. He said that the party did not call for the heads of the same tribunal members when they dismissed some petitions filed by LP candidates. He cautioned those still aggrieved over the outcome of the trial against making inflammatory statements since democracy was largely about the rule of law. He also advised the PDP leaders to exercise their right of appeal rather than making unnecessary noise. He said, “When Dr. Mimiko felt aggrieved after his mandate was stolen by Agagu and his cohorts, what we did was to file petitions. We diligently proved to the tribunal that ?Agagu was using a stolen mandate and now the mandate has been restored to the rightful owner.”
But the opposition parties in the state have called on Agagu to pack and leave the Alagbaka Government House. They are advising him to emulate the late Chief Adebayo Adefarati who was dethroned by Agagu in 2003.
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