Posted by By ROSE EJEMBI, Makurdi on
The Benue State Elections Petition tribunal Saturday laid to rest weeks of speculations as it voided the election of Senator David Mark, who is also the Senate President.
The Benue State Elections Petition tribunal Saturday laid to rest weeks of speculations as it voided the election of Senator David Mark, who is also the Senate President.
Accordingly, the tribunal has ordered Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to conduct fresh and credible elections in the two local government areas under contention, (Agatu and Okpokwu) within 60 days from the day of judgment.
The tribunal, however, upheld the election results from the remaining seven local government areas in the zone which would be added to the results of the fresh election in Agatu and Okpokwu local governments.
The All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP) contender, Alhaji Usman Abubakar, had headed for the tribunal soon after the election to challenge the return of the senate president on the grounds that he (Abubakar) scored the majority of the lawful votes cast in seven of the nine LGAs of the district, maintaining that the results from Agatu and Okpokwu LGA were cancelled and that the alleged malpractices and intimidation of voters in the two LGAs was enough to vitiate the outcome of exercise.
Alhaji Abubakar argued that having secured 188,634 votes as against the PDP's 188,374 votes cast in seven LGAs of the senatorial zone he ought to have been declared winner of that election by INEC.
Delivering judgement on the case, Chairman of the Tribunal, Justice C I Uriri noted that there were glaring irregularities in the election results of the two contentious Local Government areas, as there were irregular tickings of voters' registers, adding that there were fraudulent tampering of exhibits as alleged by the first respondent but wondered who stood to benefit from that action hence, he relegated it to the background.
In his three hour, ten minutes judgement, Justice Uriri noted that after seeing clearly the scores as announced by the Returning Officer in Okpowku and reported by the Senior Police Officers among other evidents in respect of the seven local government areas as follows; ANPP- 172,029 votes, PDP- 98,290 votes, all other changes made, and or additions by the Returning Officers in Makurdi were of no consequence.
Uriri stressed that the seven Local Governments whose results were announced at the collation centre and later withheld had 417,044 voters while the two local governments of Agatu and Okpokwu had a total of 139,446 registered voters namely 28% of registered voters for the entire senatorial district.
The Judge explained that the seven local governments whose results were announced at the collation centre which were withheld had 417,044 voters while the two local government of Agatu and Okpokwu had a total of 139,446 registered voters namely 28% of registered voters for the entire senatorial district.
While stating that the total of 324,978 votes were cast in the seven local governments not in dispute, and 102,076 votes were cast from the two local government representing 25.7% of the total votes cast at the election, the judge explained that the respondents did not deny the above figures in their response.
'We therefore assess the above figures as corrupt regarding the number of registered voters, total votes cast, percentage, etc," noting that the issue of whether the results in the seven local government areas are substantially not enough to declare a winner. He posited that they were of the view that the disenfranchising of 139,416, namely 22.8% of the total voters in the district while the two local governments' results were canceled could be in the overall interest of justice and democracy.