Stephen Ukandu, Umuahia
The candidate of the Labour Party in the February 25 national assembly poll for Bende Federal Constituency, Chief Frank Chinasa, has expressed disappointment over the dismissal of his petition against the election of the Deputy Speaker of the House of Representatives and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC by the Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Umuahia.
Recall that the Justice Samson Paul Gang-led three-man panel, had in a unanimous judgment Tuesday, dismissed Chinasa’s petition for lack of merit.
The LP candidate while reacting to the judgment, vowed to head for the Appeal Court where he hoped to upturn it.
“We are weighing our options with the judgement which we consider unfair.
“Definitely, it is not the end of the matter. We are confident that we will get better hearing at appeal,” Chinasa said.
The LP candidate had in his relief argued that the 1st Respondent was not qualified to contest for the position, and prayed the tribunal to nullify his election.
He had urged the tribunal to nullify the election of the 1st Respondent, alleging discrepancies in the names on his various certificates.
Chinasa had also urged the tribunal to declare that the 1st Respondent was not elected by majority of total lawful votes cast at the poll.
He had equally sought the nullification of the election and withdrawal of the Certificate of Return issued to the 1st Respondent, and re-issued to the 1st Petitioner, or in the alternative, the nullification of the entire election.
Meanwhile, the tribunal in its judgment, said that certified true copies of the various certificates of the 1st Respondent tendered by the Petitioners did not emanate from the issuing authorities, hence, they were inadmissible.
According to the tribunal, a party who is not a maker of a document is not competent to tender same in evidence, adding that the court can only rely on credible evidence and not speculations.
It further held that the Petitioners failed to bring any staff of the issuing authorities to testify before the tribunal to prove their case.
The tribunal also held that since the 1st Respondent had harmonised his names through a Deed Pool published in a federal gazette, and backed with a newspaper publication of change of name, the Petitioner could not establish any case of certificate forgery against him.
It held that “Okezie” is a constant denominator in all three names in the 1st Respondent’s various names, hence the harmonisation of his name to Benjamin Okezie Kalu was valid as it followed due process.
According to the tribunal, the Petitioners woefully failed to prove their case, hence, the petition was dismissed “for lack of merit.”
