The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have asked the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) to intervene in getting the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the judgment of the National and State Election Petition Tribunal.
In the letter dated October 28, 2015, and written by their counsel, Godwin Obla (SAN), the PDP and INEC had in the petition appealed to the CJN for urgent intervention against present and imminent miscarriage of justice.
He asked for the intervention of the CJN in respect of the CTC of the judgment in the case between Mr. Wali Belief Azeru vs. Michael Okechukwu Chinda and Dr. OtoGwung Dressman vs. INEC and others.
Part of the petition read: “While we appreciate the peculiar demand of time that may have necessitated such near crippling judicial adventure having to deliver a total of 12 judgments within a space of six hours in a day, it is however utterly worrisome that the judgments as pronounced in the open tribunal on the said October 26, 2015, in respect of the two reference petitions above, merely pronounced on the award of reliefs without any allusion as to the requisite decision and judicial reasons thereof.
“While one may reasonably attribute the tribunal recourse to such brevity to the exigency of time, it however fall grossly short of legal requirements mandating the court or tribunal to clearly state the legal principle and decision arrived therefrom upon which the judgment is based, just as it is applicable to the hierarchy of courts where such mode of judgment is countenanced by law, that is, at the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court.
“Our worry over the above became heightened when upon our written application to the tribunal for the CTC of the judgment or in the alternative, a CTC of the hand written judgment to be made available to us as to enable us decide on the required step as promptly as possible, in view of the limited time frame for any subsequent step to challenge the judgment, same was bluntly turned down by the registry of the tribunal as it questioned the decision to accede to the grant of the CTC of a document it has no access to even as it equally raise the issue of directive to the tribunal in the open court that no such request could be acceded until three days after the judgment.”
The two Rivers State Election Petition Tribunals sitting in Abuja had nullified the elections of Governor Nyesom Wike and 20 PDP state House of Assembly members.
