The last will not be heard of the ruling of the Akwa Ibom Election Petition Tribunal that produced neither a victor nor a vanquished until the Supreme Court says so. As sure as the day follows the night, that is where the petition will end. It is taken as a given that neither the petitioner, Umana Okon Umana, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), nor Udom Emmanuel, the Peoples Democratic Party candidate who was declared winner of the election, will be satisfied with whatever emerges from the Appeal Court, where both parties are heading. And that is what makes the Akwa Ibom case an interesting one, perhaps more than any of the cases that have been decided by the various election tribunals.
It is the only election petition outcome that has left the two parties dissatisfied; the only one in which both parties have indicated intention to appeal. Umana is heading to the appellate court to seek cancellation of the election, the prayer that the tribunal refused to grant, while Udom is going to the same court to ask that his election be upheld. We are used to having one party, usually the one whose election has been upturned, heading to the appeal court to seek quashing of the ruling of the tribunal. It is as interesting as it can get.
But should Udom have anything to worry about a re-run, in the event that the two higher judiciary authorities do not grant his prayer? I don’t think so. I guess as it stands today, the camp of the APC candidate has more to worry about if the ruling of the tribunal stands the test up to the highest court in the land. And that is why it is insisting on an outright cancellation of the election.
By the result of the April 11 election, the Independent National Electoral Commission said Udom won with 996,071 votes, against Umana’s 89,865 votes. The ruling of the election tribunal that upheld the results of elections in 13 local government areas leaves Udom with more than 400,000 votes, meaning that in the event of a re-run, the governor would go to the polls with nearly half of the disputed overall results of the first election in his kitty.
This is understandably the reason nothing other than fresh election would give Umana any hope of occupying the Government House in Uyo. This is not to say that he did not win votes in the 13 local government areas where elections have been upheld. But even if all his votes in the April 11 election came from those local government areas, which couldn’t have been possible, he is still at a terrible disadvantage. Nor can it be imagined that he can win all the votes in the 18 local government areas where a re-run might take place, leaving Udom with no vote, granted that the same number of votes that were recorded in the first outing is retained, with him getting the over half a million votes that have now been discarded.
Omolara Fakile
