...Criticisms Trail Judgment

Criticisms have continued to trail the judgment of the Court of Appeal, Owerri Division which set aside the election of Dr Okezie Ikeazu as governor of Abia State and declared Alex Otti of the All Progressives Grand Alliance winner of the election.

Activist and Senior Advocate of Nigerian, Chief Mike Ozekhome said the judgment was fundamentally wrong and full of errors.

Ozekhome, who spoke yesterday at a Channels TV Breakfast Programme ‘Sunrise Daily’ said the court was wrong in nullifying Ikpeazu's election and declaring Otti as the winner of the election.

He said the court erred in law in admitting in evidence a card reader report from a witness who was not the maker of the document.

He also wondered how the court of Appeal could give credence to the evidence of the APGA Star Witness, Mr. Ahamdi Nweke, who was only a Collation Centre Agent and could not have been at the polling units where elections were alleged not to have held.

He said that giving the case before the court, it was wrong for the justices to have declared Otti as the winner of the elections and ordered his swearing-in.

Ozekhome said that going by the calculations of the Appeal Court, the difference between the votes allocated to Otti and Ikpeazu were 48,000 while the total number of registered voters in the 3 Local Government Areas of Obingwa, Osisioma and Isialangwa North where the court cancelled the elections were in excess of 250,000 and as such, going by the provisions of the Electoral Act, the court should ordered a re run in the affected local government areas.

He equally faulted the Court of Appeal for relying only on the Card Reader to determine the issue of over-voting even when the Independent National Electoral Commission's guidelines allowed manual accreditation where Card Readers failed.

Ozekhome however expressed confidence that the Supreme Court would not allow the Appeal Court judgment in the interest of equity, justice and fairness.

Similarly, a Group under the aegis of Coalition of INEC Accredited Domestic Election Observers comrpsising of organizations that monitored the April 2015 governorship election in Abia State, has faulted the judgment.