S' Court orders fresh hearing of petition against Yar'Adua

The Supreme Court in Abuja on Friday ordered a fresh hearing of the petition filed by Hope Democratic Party (HDP) challenging the election of President Umaru Yar'Adua. A panel of five justices, in a unanimous judgment, also ordered that a new panel of the Court of Appeal be constituted by its President to hear the petition.

The court gave the order following an appeal filed by the HDP challenging the August 20, 2007 judgment of the Court of Appeal which struck out its petition on the ground that the petitioner had failed to state the grounds upon which the petition was filed. The lower court also held that due process was not followed in filing the petition and that in the petition, letter "s" was omitted in spelling "Peoples" and "National" was omitted from writing INEC.

The lower court struck out the petition on the argument that PDP and INEC were not juristic persons. HDP had filed the petition against INEC Chairman Maurice Iwu, Yar'Adua and the Nigeria Police Force, on the ground that the ballot papers used in the conduct of the April 21, 2007 presidential election were not bounded in booklet form.

The appellant, who alleged that the election was marred with irregularities, also contended that the ballot papers were not serialised, hence the Electoral Act of 2006 was not followed in the conduct of the election. A panel of Supreme Court justices, in a judgment read by Justice Ikechi Ogbuagu, held that the lower court erred when it held that the petition was not based on good ground. "The name of INEC was clearly described in all the processes filed in the petition, so the omission of 'national' and 's' from 'peoples' was in error and therefore goes to no issue. '' The court, however, held that Iwu be struck out from the petition on the ground that he ought not to be sued in his personal capacity since he acted in his capacity as the INEC chairman during the election. Other justices who endorsed the verdict were Walter Onnoghen, George Oguntade, Christopher Chukwuemeka-Ineh, Mustapha Coomasie, Dahiru Mustapha and Francis Tabai.