Bayelsa polls: Tribunal affirms Dickson as gov.

Bayelsa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal yesterday affirmed Henry Seriake Dickson the duly elected governor in the February 12 governorship elections.

 The tribunal, chaired by Justice Mohammed Ibrahim Sirajo of the Plateau State judiciary, in a unanimous ruling which lasted one hour and delivered amidst tight security by a combined team of the Nigeria Police and State Security Service (SSS), dismissed the Change Advocacy Party (CAP) petition for lack of merit.

CAP had filed a petition against the election of Dickson, arguing that he was not qualified as the candidate of the PDP as of the time the election was held. It, therefore, prayed the tribunal to nullify the election and order  a fresh one.

 However, in the judgment,  the tribunal averred that the grounds of argument of the CAP petition on the qualification of Dickson because of the pendency of a litigation before the Supreme Court could not invalidate his election. It described the grounds of the petition and the reliefs sought by the petitioner as ridiculous.

According to the tribunal, there was incontrovertible record before it that indicated that Dickson was duly nominated by his party and qualified to stand the election. Sirajo stated that there was nothing to show that Dickson, as of the time of his election as governor, was a party to the litigation before the Supreme Court.

 He pointed out the amended Electoral Act 2010 and the Nigerian Constitution as the laws regulating the conduct of the governorship election and averred that Section 31 of the Act conferred on registered political parties, the exclusive rights to nominate candidates for the election.

 The tribunal dismissed the claim by the petitioner that a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had in a suit between the former governor Timipre Sylva and PDP made an order restraining the PDP from conducting the primary election in which Dickson emerged  the candidate of the party.

Sirajo, who observed that the litigation was an internal affair of the party and that the petitioner was not a party to it, added that pendency of a suit was not part of the requirement for disqualification of a candidate.

“Section 6 of the constitution which vests judicial powers in the country in the court shall not by any stretch of imagination be interpreted to mean that whenever there is an intra-party dispute before a court concerning nomination of candidates for election, the court shall usurp the powers of the political power.

“For a start, it should be stated that the Ist respondent was not in any litigation as of the time of the election. He was not a party to the litigation with Timipre Sylva and the PDP.  The argument of the petitioner that Dickson was not qualified to run as governor because of a pending litigation is turning the law on its face and we reject it in its entirety.”