Posted on: 06:35 Sat, 06 Feb 2016



Following the rulings of the Supreme Court on
the governorship elections in Akwa Ibom, Abia,
Ebonyi and Rivers states- heavy criticism
emanated from various quarters as to why the
apex court did not take the reports from Card
Reader Machines into consideration before
issuing judgments on the matters.

The Supreme Court had simply issued its
judgments without giving reasons behind the
decisions reached- with a promise to offer
explanation to Nigerians on a subsequent day.
While justifying its rulings on Friday, February 5,
the Supreme Court said although the use of the
Electronic Card Reader Machine for
accreditation of voters was provided for in the
Approved Guidelines and Regulations for the
conduct of the 2015 general elections- the
device was however, never ‘intended to
supplant, displace or supersede’ the Voters’
Register.

The apex court stated that the issue had
resulted to various Divisions of the Court of
Appeal, giving different interpretations on
election disputes that were brought before them
by appellants.

A seven-man panel of Justices of the apex
court, led by the Chief Justice of Nigeria,
Justice Mahmud Mohammed, made the position
of the court on the matter known.

“True, indeed, the Card Reader Machine traces
its paternity to the above Guidelines and
Regulations. Regrettably, its probative pedestal
in the vocabulary of electoral jurisprudence has
generated conflicting interpretations from Their
Lordships of the different Divisions of the Court
of Appeal.”

“With the intervention of this court, in its recent
decision in Shinkafi v Yari (supra), it is hoped
that practitioners and all other courts will begin
to appreciate the position of the said Card
Reader Machine, and the Reports generated
therefrom, in election litigation.”

“Prior to the authorisation of its use by the
Guidelines and Manual (supra), the Electoral
Act, 2010 (as amended), in sections 49 (1) and
(2), had ordained an analogue procedure for the
accreditation process. As a corollary to the
procedure outline above, section 53(2) of the
said Act (that is, the Electoral Act) enshrined
the consequences for the breach, negation or
violation of the sanctity of the actual poll sequel
to the consummation of the accreditation
procedure in section 49 (supra).”

“With the advantage of hindsight, INEC,
pursuant to its powers under the said Electoral
Act, authorised the deployment of the said Card
Readers. Even with the introduction of the said
device, that is the Card Reader Machine, the
National Assembly, in its wisdom, did not deem
it necessary to bowdlerise the said analogue
procedure in section 49 from the Act so that
the Card Reader procedure would be the sole
determinant of a valid accreditation process.”

“Contrariwise, from the Corrigendum No 2, made
on March 28, 2015, amending paragraph 13(b)
of the Approved Guidelines, it stands to reason
that the Card Reader was meant to supplement
the Voter’ Register and was never designed or
intended to supplant, displace or supersede it.”

“Indeed, since the Guidelines and Manual, which
authorised the use and deployment of the
electronic Card Reader Machine, were made in
exercise of the powers conferred by the
Electoral Act, the said Card Reader cannot,
logically, depose or dethrone the Voters’
Register whose judicial roots are, firmly,
embedded or entrenched in the selfsame
Electoral Act from which it )the Voters’
Register). Directly, derives its sustenance and
currency.”

“Thus, any attempt to invest it (the Card Reader
Machine procedure) with such overreaching pre-
eminence or superiority over the Voters’
Register is like converting an auxiliary
procedure- into the dominant procedure- of
proof, that is, proof of accreditation.”

“This is a logical impossibility. Indeed, only
recently, this court in Shinkafi vs Yari, confirmed
the position that the Card Reader Machine has
not supplanted the statement of results in
appropriate forms; hence, the appellant still had
the obligation to prove petition relating to
accreditation of voters and over-voting as
enunciated in several decisions of this court”,
Justice Nweze added.

“More so, using the Ebonyi state gubernatorial
dispute as an instance, the apex court panel
noted that the Head of Unit, ICT Data
Management at INEC headquarters, who
testified as the PW-8 before the tribunal,
explained that the Card Reader performed two
roles, namely, the verification of the Permanent
Voters Card, PVC, and the authentication of
fingerprint. It observed that the witness, who
generated a Card Reader Machines Report for
Ebonyi State Governorship Election, had
admitted that it was not a complete report
covering all the details of Polling Units in the
state as some Polling Units were not uploaded
and thus not included in the report.”

“The witness said the report she tendered
before the tribunal represented data that were
successfully uploaded before the chairman of
INEC gave an instruction for the server to be
shut down. According to the Supreme Court,
“Her trenchant responses, clearly, demonstrate
that the Card Reader Machine Reports were
neither inviolable nor sacrosanct as a host of
intervening mischievous human variables could
impinge on their reliability.

“Against the background of the testimonies of
PW8, it is, actually, surprising, that learned
counsel to the appellant chose not to utilise the
Voter’ Register, to show the entire gamut of the
voters, but rather built his case on what, in the
unanswerable words of the lower court was an
exhibit that was not accurate, sufficient and
comprehensive enough to be relied upon in
proof of the allegation of non-compliance with
the Electoral Act, 2010, as amended.”

“That is to say that the appellant (as Petitioner)
failed to weave his case on the Voters
‘Registers and a fortiori did not produce such
registers because if he had produced them, their
contents would have been unfavourable to the
allegations he made in the petition and hence
his decision to withhold them.

“Thus, the appellant laboured in vain in the
spirited attempt he made before this court to
have the findings of the lower court vacated. He
was, indeed, attempting the impossible given
the anaemic evidence he adduced. In my view,
the lower court, rightly, affirmed the findings of
the trial tribunal in this regard”. Besides, the
apex court held that the appellant, Edward
Nkwegu Okereke, who was the candidate of the
Labour Party during the April 11, 2015,
governorship election in Ebonyi state, could not
lay credible evidence to support his case
against governor Umahi of the Peoples
Democratic Party.”