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Plateau LG Tribunal: Ubandoma wins as
appellant tribunal set aside decision of trial tribunal.
By Dickson Gupiya
February 27, 2019
The Plateau
State Local Government Election Appeal Tribunal has ordered for the hearing of
a chairmanship petition on merit by the Plateau State Local Government Election
Petition Tribunal.
Chairman of
the Appellate tribunal, Justice Arum Ashom gave the order in a judgement in the
appeal of Ubandoma Joshua Laven and Peoples Democratic Party against Kwarnim Nanloh,
All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Plateau State independent Electoral
Commission (INEC).
Recall that
the Plateau state Independent Electoral Commission (PLASIEC) conducted Local
Government polls for councillorship and chairmanship positions and subsequently
returned Kwarnim Nanloh of APC as chairman of Langtang North. Dissatisfied,
Ubandoma Joshua Laven and PDP approached the tribunal for redress.
However,
through preliminary objections and motions on notices, counsel to the
respondents challenged the jurisdiction of the tribunal to hear the petition on
grounds of it being incompetent, statute barred and filed out of time.
Deciding on
the objections raised, the trial tribunal chaired by Jovita Binjim with Jacob
Longden and Isaiah Randa as members, in its wisdom struck out the petition
which prompted the petitioners filing an appeal against that decision.
The ground
for the appeal was for the Appeal Tribunal to determined whether they were
heard on merit; if they were giving rights to fair hearing when the tribunal
refused to use the two sets of results of the election presented before it and
if the date for the declaration of the results were not wrongly calculated.
Deciding on
the four issues raised, the Appeal Tribunal with Justice Arum Ashom as chairman
with Nankwat Shaseet and Martin Omohwo as members resolved the four grounds for
the appeal in favour of the appellants saying that the appeal succeeds as there
was miscarriage of Justice by the lower tribunal.
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