By Adadareporters
The president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, has ordered that all election petition cases pending before the court in the 36 states and the FCT be heard at the Abuja and Lagos divisions of the appellate court.
This followed allegations of bribery and justice manoeuvres at most petition tribunals across the federation. The development implies that only two of the 20 divisions of the court would determine all appellate cases arising from the judgements of the elections petition tribunals throughout the country.
The order affects gubernatorial, national and state assemblies’ elections, which have the court of appeal as the last court of adjudication.
All appeal cases arising from the judgements of the election petitions tribunals on the 1,209 cases filed against the conduct of 2023 general elections were assigned to Abuja and Lagos for hearing and determination, it was gathered.
To this end, all political parties and their candidates, having pending appeal cases were directed to comply with the order by moving to either Lagos or Abuja accordingly to prosecute their cases, a source added.
Recall that various political parties, including the All Progressives Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP), and their aggrieved candidates claimed that judges of the tribunals became vulnerable as governors provided logistics and other support for them to ease the discharge of their assignments.
Some judges of the tribunals were reportedly indicted and might face trial by the National Judicial Council (NJC), our reporter heard.
According to a source, “The three major political parties are involved in the petition writing against the governors. In a state controlled by APC, PDP and LP parties would petition the court of appeal, alleging that the governor bribed the judges to obtain fraudulent judgements in favour of APC and its candidates.
“In the same vein, in the state where PDP and LP are in power, APC and its defeated candidates were writing petitions against the governor and the ruling party. There have been petitions and counter petitions by the three political parties but thank God that the president has resolved the imbroglio in favour of common sense.”
Meanwhile, an unsigned statement sent to an appellant in Delta State by the appellate court notifying him of the relocation of his case to Lagos, reads, “Please take note that the venue of the election petition fixed for Monday, 16th October, 2023 is no longer Court of Appeal, Asaba. The venue has been changed to the Court of Appeal, Lagos. Thank you.”
The lawmaker representing Warri Federal Constituency in the House of Representatives, Rt Hon Thomas Ereyitomi, has his case pending at the appellate course.
He said, “We have the notice transferring the cases from Delta State to Lagos and we have complied. Its financial implications are huge but no sacrifice is too much to get a fair and impartial judgement.”
