Benue State Local Government Election Appeal Tribunal, sitting at the Nigerian Bar Association House in Abuja, on Thursday, dismissed six appeals filed against the earlier decisions of the election petition tribunal.. In a judgment delivered by the three-member panel headed by Honorable Justice Igyuse, the tribunal reaffirmed the integrity of the trial tribunal’s decisions.. The panel offered clear reasoning for their ruling, emphasizing that the appellants failed to prove a critical issue regarding valid nomination and unlawful exclusion from participating in the local government elections by the Benue State Independent Electoral Commission, BSIEC.. The panel stated that the interim order and judgment of the Benue State High Court relied upon by the appellants, had no relevance to the subject matter of their petition.. The panel said the judgement did not grant the right of candidacy to the petitioners to receive the reliefs sought in their appeals.. Furthermore, the panel underscored that the matter of political party leadership is an internal affair and that no court or tribunal holds jurisdiction over such issues.. They recognized that candidate nominations are part of the domestic affairs of a political party and are not meant for tribunal deliberation.. The panel asserted that both the petitioners and respondents belonged to the same political party, the All Progressives Congress, APC.. It held that, “This is a case of two factions within the same political party engaged in a struggle, yet APC was not included as a party to clarify who its candidate is.. “It is universally understood that no responsible party will present two candidates for the same election.”. The panel noted that the APC did not voice any complaints during the proceedings and was not included as a party to clarify who its candidate was.. It concluded that the failure to join APC in the appeal, which would have made clear who the candidate was, was detrimental to the petitioners’ case.. Thus, they dismissed the various petitions and upheld the tribunal’s decisions.. In a similar vein, the appeal tribunal also dismissed the petition filed by the Labour Party candidate in Kwande Local Government, Honorable Tor-Adza Tertsea, against the executive chairman of Kwande Local Government, Honorable Vitalis Neji, citing a lack of merit.. The Honorable Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice and Public Order, Chief Fidelis Mnyim and the Executive Chairman of Guma local government, Orwough Maurice who doubles as the ALGON Chairman, both described the judgements as a victory for democracy.
