Dame Pauline K. Tallen & Ors V. David Jonah Jang & Ors (2011)

LawGlobal-Hub Lead Judgment Report – COURT OF APPEAL

CLARA BATA OGUNBIYI, J.C.A (Delivering the Leading Judgment)

This is an appeal against the Ruling of the Plateau State Governorship Election Tribunal, sitting in Jos (coram Hon. Justices Joseph Jella, Olayinka D. Afolabi, Benson Ogbu) delivered on the 14th day of October, 2011, wherein the Tribunal dismissed the petitioners’ Motion to reopen the case to enable petitioners tender and have admitted in evidence FORMS EC 8D, EC8E and the INEC Manual for Election officers, which documents, the Petitioners’ Counsel inadvertently omitted to tender during trial.

Being dissatisfied with the said Ruling, the Appellants have appealed against some before this honourable Court.

The petitioners/Appellants filed a petition on 19th May, 2011 before the Governorship Election petition Tribunal Holden of Jos in respect of Governorship election held on the 26th day of April, 2011.

The 1st and 2nd Respondents filed their joint reply to the petition dated 3/6/11 (page 193 of vol.1 of the Record of Appeal). The 3rd Respondent filed its reply to the petition dated 3/6/11 (page 105 of volume 1 of the Record of Appeal) while the 4th Respondent filed its reply dated 16/6/11 (page 1156 of volume 2 of the Record of Appeal).

During the course of hearing, the Appellants and the Respondents in this petition agreed that the certified true copies of the electoral documents obtained during the Tribunal-ordered inspection be tendered from the bar without objection. Among these documents were Forms EC8D, EC8E and the INEC Manual for conduct of election, for the April, 26, 2011 Governorship Election. The Appellants made reference to pages 2309-2310 of volume 4 of the Record of Appeal wherein the counsel to the petitioners at the proceedings of 13/09/11 stated that “On the 19/5/11 this Tribunal granted the petitioners order pursuant to an Ex-parte application. The documents made available to us by INEC for inspection have been certified. We seek to tender them from the bar”, and in response, counsel to the 1st-3rd Respondents stated that ”we have no objection to all the documents”.

The said documents are as contained in the list in the said motion exparte which includes Forms EC8D (summary of results for the State) & EC8E (summary/declaration of results for the candidates).

Form EC8D is the breakdown of the results for the said election on Local Government basis while Form EC8E is the results of the votes scored by each candidate that contested in the said election otherwise known as the Declaration of Result.

In the process of the preparation of the Petitioners’ final written address, the Petitioners’ discovered that there was no Exhibit numbers for the said Forms EC8D, EC8E and the INEC Manual which prompted the discovery that the said Forms were left out when tendering the electoral materials and that this was by inadvertence of counsel.

To ameliorate the situation, Counsel to the Appellants, by a motion dated October 10, 2011 and filed on the same day, applied before the Tribunal for the following prayers:

1. An order of this Honourable Tribunal granting leave to the Petitioners/Applicants to bring this application outside Pre-hearing session.
2. An order of this Honourable Tribunal re-opening the case of the Petitioners/Applicants to enable them fender from the bar as Exhibits in this Petition Forms EC8D for the April 26, 2011 Plateau State

Governorship Election and Form EC8E for the April 26, 2011 Plateau State Governorship Election and the Independent National Electoral Commission Manual for Election Officials 2011.

3. An order admitting Forms EC8D and EC8E and the Independent National Electoral commission Manual for Election official 2011 in evidence in these proceedings upon such tendering from the bar.
4. An order that the said Forms EC8D and EC8E and the Independent National Electoral Commission Manual for Election Officials 2011 be marked as exhibits accordingly in this Proceedings.

The said motion is contained at pages 2920 – 2008 of Vol. 5 of the Record of Appeal.

The Tribunal delivered its ruling on the motion on the 14th day of October, 2011 wherein it dismissed the said application of the Appellants; this is evidenced at (pages 373-3194 of volume 5 of the Record of Appeal).

The Appellants filed a notice of appeal dated 4th day of November, 2011 against the aforesaid ruling (pages 3349-3359, vol. 5 of the Record of Appeal). The notice contained ten grounds of appeal with their particulars.