Wike V Peterside: Appeal Court Reserves Judgement Over Rivers Governorship Election

The Court of Appeal in Abuja has reserved its judgement in the appeal brought by Rivers State governor, Nyesom Wike, against the judgement of the Rivers State Governorship Election Tribunal

which nullified his election on October 24, 2015.The appellate court took the decision after the adoption of briefs by lawyers to parties in the appeal.Wike had asked the court to set aside the judgement of the tribunal which sacked him from office.In a notice of appeal dated November 3,
2015 and filed same day by his lawyer, Mr. Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), the governor raised 26 grounds of appeal upon which he sought to set aside the entire judgement of the tribunal.But during the course of hearing of the appeal, lawyers to Dakuku Peterside and his political platform, All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN) and Yusuf Ali (SAN) respectively moved the court to strike out some paragraphs of the appeal on the grounds that they do not flow from the decision of the tribunal.The motion was vehemently opposed by lawyers to the appellants, Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), Wole Olanikpekun (SAN) and Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN) for Wike, PDP and INEC respectively, who argued that the motion lacked merit and it should be dismissed.On his part, lawyer to Governor Wike challenged the competence of Dakuku’s petition on the grounds that it did not carry the stamp and seal of its lawyers contrary to the directives issued by the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) that all processes filed must carry the stamp and seal of the lawyers.Wike among other grounds noted that the tribunal erred in law when it relied on hearsay and inadmissible evidence to nullify his election.He added that the finding and conclusion of the tribunal were not supported by evidence before the court.The governor stated in his notice of appeal, “The Governorship Election Tribunal for Rivers State erred in law when it refused to follow the decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Kakih vs PDP (2014) 5 NWLR which was duly cited to it to the effect that a party who makes non-voting or misconduct of an election the pivot of his case must call at least one disenfranchised voter from each of the polling booths or units or stations in the constituency.”