Posted by By Paul Odili on
Mr. Emeka Etiaba, lawyer to Mr Peter Obi, in the governorship election petition, in this piece gives an insight into how they prosecuted the petition before the tribunal that resulted in the favourable judgement his client obtained last week Friday.
Mr. Emeka Etiaba, lawyer to Mr Peter Obi, in the governorship election petition, in this piece gives an insight into how they prosecuted the petition before the tribunal that resulted in the favourable judgement his client obtained last week Friday. Excerpts:
Last week, the tribunal ruled in favour of your client, what would you say about the judgment?
I would rather say that the judgment came as a justification of the effort of the petitioner in the past two years. Election was held and he won, but a result contrary to what would have been declared was declared. He gently went to the tribunal, taking myself and some other lawyers to handle the matter. On the first day of September, 2003, hearing proper started on the matter.
The hearing was delayed because all the applications we brought to get INEC, to supply us all the information that would help us continue with the case were frustrated. Unfortunately, we had ourselves going into the petition without much of information. But as we went on we were able to get all the materials we needed to prove that our client did not just win the election, but he won it convincingly. The judgement has come to us actually as a confirmation of what everybody in Anambra State had always known. We are happy with it, though, it would have been better considering the weight of evidence on votes allotted to the first respondent, which the expert prosecution witness, number 15, DSP Kolawole, whose evidence the tribunal noted was not discredited, but which was then added to Dr. Ngige. But, be that as it may, it did not change the significance of the judgment, it only added few votes to him. So, we must say that we are happy that judgment came even after two years and we won.
Gov. Ngige was on AIT soon after the ruling was given, and said that the judgment was political, though he did not go into specifics, how do you react to this?
You have swept the carpet off my feet, I wanted to ask you whether he noted some salient areas or points that were not canvassed. But I know that Dr. Ngige, boasted before now, that he had five Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), canvassing his case for him, and I wonder why the five SANs were not able to canvass the issue well enough and to his own satisfaction. The tribunal came up with a very well considered judgment, attended to all the issues canvassed. I believe that the governor is still suffering from the shock he received, because, I am aware that he had told everybody that cared to listen that he was going to win and win well at the tribunal.
This is not a surprise because I have seen claimants, petitioners, respondents going through some shock when what they prepared for did not come to be. If there were issues that were not attended to, his lawyers ought to talk about it. And we expect them to speak on this, because they had been speaking since Friday. The lead counsel, Dr. Jerome Okolo (SAN), has spoken, Owelle Uwache (SAN) has spoken, Emeka Ngige (SAN) has spoken, the INEC lawyer also was on NTA, and said they were satisfied with the judgment. I also read a Director in INEC, Dr. Igani saying that they were not going to challenge the ruling, because the judgment reflected what happened. I don't know what issues that were not attended to. He should do well by giving specifics so that we will understand what he is talking about.
What do you make of this insinuation that one member of the tribunal absented himself last Friday because of his disagreement with the judgment?
With due respect to him, because I have a lot of respect for the said judge, we believe that at the fullness of time we will know while he absented. But I don't rule it out that it may be on health grounds. If it was on the basis of disagreement with other members of the panel, he could have given his own dissenting judgment. So far people who are alleging that it is because of the kind of judgment that was to be given that made him not to be part of it, the people can do well and give us the making of the judgement. You know when home videos are done, they tell viewers when they were made. The people who are insinuating, can show us the making of the judgment, it will do well to let us know what transpired. But for today, I sincerely believe that it may be based on ill-health.
The other issue is that somebody alleged that the judges had two months to write the judgment, but it was the day they were delivering it that it was written, resulting in the judgment being written in long hand, what is your reaction?
I understand that one Joe Martins Uzodike made such allegation. And I know that Uzodike was not there at the tribunal when judgment was delivered.
How did you know that he was not there?
I know very well that he was not there. He said he is a lawyer and was at the bar, but he was not there. As a lawyer he ought to stay at the bar. If he now contends that he was not at the bar, it means he was siting far away, so he couldn't have seen what the chairman was reading. I saw what he read, and it was printed and after delivering the judgment, it was duly signed. We belong to a noble profession called law, and a lot of people have, by accident, entered into legal practice and the decorum may be lacking. My dad was a lawyer and even before I graduated as a lawyer he taught me that a lawyer should not waste words, he taught me that a lawyer should not destroy the bar, or the bench. He taught me that If I disagree with any judgment I should go back to the court to contest it. He did not teach me that when I hear a judgment I did not like, I should run down the judges because it does not go down well with me. So, a lot is going on at the bar. For instance, you had a lawyer going to the Supreme Court to attack the Chief Justice of the Federation on a matter which he was paid how much. And his client, Globe Motors had even taken adverts in the papers to say that the man was not speaking their mind.
There has been allegation of money exchanging hands and pressure being mounted in certain quarters to ensure that judgment goes certain ways, as a lawyer to Obi, was there any time you noticed some undue pressure either on you or on any of the parties involved?
First of all, I remember that people were talking about the delay delivering judgment. I must tell you in law a tribunal or a court of law, actually has the right to take up to three months to deliver its judgment. What has happened is that because this case lasted for a period longer than necessary, people saw a delay as amounting to doing something. But the truth is that the tribunal was still within the ambit of the law. They delivered the judgment within time.
One may say that they were not as fast as they were expected to, but we should not lose sight of the fact that over 487 witnesses were in the tribunal to testify. Their evidences were evaluated. So they may have wasted time, but professionally they got it right.
On the issue of delay and money exchanging hands, I will tell you that this is a political case and for we lawyers we concentrate on the legal aspect. The legal aspect is that we have brought a good petition, we have thrown in good witnesses and acceptable evidence, and we have been able to give the court a good address that will stand the test of time. And then we waited for judgment to come.
The issue of money or no money, or somebody brings money and give to the other person, it is a political case, and it is expected that stories will make round. But, I must tell you that we were not worried, because we knew that the case will go the way it went. It is not actually a surprise that the case went the direction of the petitioner. If you were at the tribunal, you would have noticed that over 95 per cent applications and objections made by counsel to the petitioner were upheld and that is law. You see, you don't just wake up and get judgment. You go through the case and you find out that even during the trial one party was actually doing better. So, no counsel in this matter will come out to say that it is shocking, it is surprising that judgment went the way it did. What we are talking about is law. It is not a football match, where the better dribbler is applauded the most. So there was nothing like being afraid of Ghana-Must-Go. We all know that the first respondent was in possession of unlimited resources, but then we also know that God is the one who is able to give all resources.
How do situate this scenario of your client APGA being declared winner by the tribunal and the same tribunal did not give victory to other APGA candidates, who contested against the verdict of their election?
Thank you very much. We have to distinguish between the case of Mr. Peter Obi and the case of Buhari against Obasanjo and other cases in that same tribunal. You see what Mr. Obi did, because he knew there were plans to rig the election, he empowered the party agents to make sure that they collected results sheet at the polling booths. Based on the result sheets which he collated and brought to us the lawyers we used them to craft the petition.
This is different in what was obtained in other cases where the other petitioners did not have result sheets. What they were saying instead was that they won the election. But they were not organised enough or maybe they did not have the wherewithal to empower their agents to collect their result sheets. Election cases thrive on documentary evidences. What happened in the case of Obi against Ngige, is that two sets of results were brought before the tribunal. One tendered by INEC, the other tendered by the petitioner. He led evidence through the PWI, Chief Victor Umeh, the acting national chairman of APGA, that these results emanated from the polling booth to the ward level, local government level and eventually to him. What the tribunal merely did was to look at two sets of results and say we believe this result, we do not believe this result.
To be able to lay credence to the petitioner's result sheet because we were actually disadvantaged, because the law gives the respondent, the one who had been declared winner the advantage. The law says that any result sheet tendered by INEC is deemed to be the authentic result until proven otherwise. So the petitioner, Mr. Peter Obi had an uphill task. What he did was first of all get a good team of lawyers, present his result sheet, present a good petition and got ANPP in Anambra State to come up with their own set of results. ANPP's results were brought in and compared with that submitted by INEC for PDP and for Ngige, and the one tendered by the petitioner. On the day of judgment, the chairman while he was reading the judgment mentioned that they took cognisance of the fact that the results tendered by ANPP was in all material particulars the same with the one tendered by the petitioner and his agent.
So because of that, the onus now shifted from the petitioner to the respondents and INEC. But for ANPP, result, I tell you we would have had problem because the law says INEC result should be authentic until proven otherwise. So that was what happened.
The other people did not get victory not because the tribunal did not want to give them justice. But the tribunal is not a morality court,it is a law court and like I said election petition thrives on documentary evidence. I try to distinguish between ours and Buhari. He was not asking that Court of Appeal and Supreme Court should declare him winner, he only said that there were irregularities which to him would have led to cancellation or annulment of the presidential election. We were not asking for that. We were only saying that we have our results, declare us the winner.
Does Ngige or you have the right to go to the ECOWAS Court to challenge the outcome of Appeal Court?
My brother, the issue of ECOWAS Court is just part of the abuses that we see in Anambra State. You see Anambra State is a place where educated people because of their desire for power do the most ridiculous. I had one of my colleagues say that these days of ECOWAS court, that if they lose at Appeal Court, they will go to ECOWAS court, there is no provision for that in our land. ECOWAS court is supposed to regulate nations, not individuals. So there is no provision for our electoral matter going to ECOWAS court. It is not in our laws. But anything can happen in Anambra State. But if we get to the bridge, we will cross it. The whole thing is just to buy time. They can even appeal to the Supreme Court and there, they will tell them that they don't have jurisdiction.
One of your colleagues said the tribunal judgment, was dripping with the ink of the Federal Government, what is your view on that?
Can you be specific as to who that my colleague is.
Mr. Keyamo said that?
I actually watched him on the television make that statement. He said the judgment was dripping with the ink of the Federal Government. The next day I read in the newspaper where he was saying that the judgment was dropping with PDP ink.
You see, when people find themselves in places where people repose a lot of confidence in them, they should show restraint while they talk. This matter lasted for over two years at the tribunal, Festus Keyamo was never in Court for one day. Keyamo did not cross examine any witness, he did not argue any application at the tribunal. Keyamo was not there during the process of preparation of the address, he was not there on adoption. On the day of judgment, Keyamo was not there.
In converse all the Senior Advocates that represented Ngige were all there from the beginning to the end. And when the judgement was given, my good friend Emeka Ngige (SAN), said and it was reported he has not refuted it, in Sunday Guardian newspaper that they had not seen the influence of external forces in the judgment. Keyamo, who was in Lagos when the judgment was read, and who only received the verdict on the phone, one hour later, formed an opinion and said what he said.
My heart bleeds for people who read newspapers and believe that some people are above board.