Okoi:
"I was in the Legal team of the CPC in the case filed by it challenging the return of President Jonathan in the 2011 general election. We make a sustained and concerted efforts made by us (legal team) to establish that votes purported scored by Jonathan in the South/South and South East were phantom and fake using scientific analysis by examination and matching of the thumb prints on the ballot papers with their finger prints using biometric data of registered voters was frustrated by INEC."
I am sorry, but in this case, "scientific analysis" is bullshit. You are wasting your time talking highfalutin stuff, because your party has not even mastered the BASIC stuff. To any fair observer, the organizational incompetence of CPC boggles my mind. I mean, we are talking Nigeria, right? Throughout the election period, CPC could NOT even send its own agents to monitor the elections in the South-East. You were completely AWOL -fighting over money in Lagos, while other parties were jealously guarding their votes. Your candidate spent less than 40 minutes campaining in the South-East. On election day, you could not even bother to send pooling agents to pooling booths. And yet, after it was all said and done, you turn around and start proving fraud via "scientific analysis" of 60 million biometric data? Are you kidding me?
You guys are jokers. If it was up to me, if I see any of you in the South-East talking electoral fraud, I will string you up by the balls and hang you from a mango tree. That's the only treatment that will cure your incompetence and electoral unseriousness.
If you want to win an election -you have to do what AGPA did in Imo State: stand up and fight! You can not spend all of 30 minutes campaigning in the South-East, and then expect to grab a win.
Dominic
--- In NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com, okoi_advocate@... wrote:
>
> Prof,to small extent I agree with you that it is a huge challenge to examine ballot papers for 120000 polling units. However CPC was not challenging the results of the election in the entire country but only in the South/South and South East States where Jonathan scored in the average of 98 percent of the total votes cast in each of these States. Is it possible for Jonathan to score such percentage taking into account the report that the general voters turn out in some of these States were in the region of 58 percent ? So how did INEC came by these huge return in the States? Are such huge turnout consistent with international trends in electoral contest? Why did INEC wait for returns from all other parts of the country to be collated and announced more than forty eights before that of SS and SE States ? Why should the law place the burden on a Petitioner to prove that an election was vitiated by fraud? Don't you think the onus should be on INEC to establish that it conducted the election in substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act? Do you know that it is practically impossible for a Petitioner to win a election Petition in the country today. The gains made in 2007 in some States where some returns in the governor ship elections were nullified were wiped away in the 2011 because the Judges became stoutly insurmountable blocks to Petitioners by stifling and strict interpretation of the law. Despite the fact that the Court of Appeal in the cases of Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Cross River , Osun States had held that the burden of Proof lies on INEC to show that there was no excess voting or that the election was conducted in strict compliance with the guidelines made by it for the election in respect of the 2007 election,the Same Court of Appeal in the CPC vs Jonathan refused to follow these decisions. I think there are provisions in the 2010 Electoral Act which was used to conduct 2011 election making it a criminal offence for anybody to snatch a ballot box. However INEC refused to act in cases where the provisions of the Electoral Act where infringed. Multiple thumb printing is also prohibited. In many cases these offences were committed in active connivance with INEC officials. For instance we found that the Returning Officer of IMO State in the presidential election was the spouse of the present Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. In Anambra State it was established during cross examination of one Professor Egboka (Returning Officer for Anambra State in the Presidential election ) that accreditation took place at 3pm contrary to the Guidelines of INEC but the Court of Appeal refused to act on the evidence. So this is the challenge of election litigation in the country. I will therefore suggest that the entire Recommendations made by the Uwais Committee be adopted by the National Assembly and enacted into Law otherwise; we shall continue to have questionable elections in the country with the concomitant illegitimacy problems on any government that emerges from such patently dubious mandates.
> Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Bolaji" alukome@...
> Sender: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tue, 01 May 2012 02:05:16
> To: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> Reply-To: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [NaijaPolitics] Re: Ibori’s saga, a psychia tric test reminder for le aders
>
>
>
> Okoi:
> I sympathize with those who use - or try to use - biometric data
> (particularly fingerprints) - to prove lack of integrity in a particular
> election. There are just PRACTICAL HURDLES that are essentially
> insurmountable if the numbers to be inspected are more than (say)
> 100,000 to 200,000, (and no less than 30,000) as was the case in Ekiti
> State, and IF evidence of fraud in that small number DOES NOT lead to an
> alteration of the results. For CPC to be asking for inspection of
> millions of presidential election ballot papers - with the hope that
> finding the fraud would alter the results and lead to complete
> cancellation or determination in its candidate's favor - is impractical
> and would look like a dragnet.
> If there are 62 million votes, 36 states, 774 local governments and
> 120,000 polling units, how many of these votes can one really look at by
> biometric forensic action WITHIN A REASONABLE TIME to determine that the
> fraudulent voting ACTUALLY AFFECTS the outcome of the elections? The
> problem is the CRIMINALIZATION of thumb-printing and ballot-snatching -
> which require overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence - as different
> from a civil "crime", which requires only substantial and reasonable
> evidence. If for example, the law were to be changed to indicate that
> "A Party which shows (by any forensic means) through the inspection of
> no more than 200,000 ballot papers in each of 1-25% of the electoral
> divisions (with requirement of geographical distribution) and/or number
> of electorates of the relevant Electoral District (depending on the
> actual election) that fraud would alter the declared winner, that
> election shall be cancelled."
> If, for example, CPC was ALLOWED by law to use (of its choice) 620,000
> votes in 9 states and over 70 local governments and 1,200 polling units
> to SHOW fraud, with the hope that the entire election would be cancelled
> under such a finding, one would consider that reasonable. ANy attempt
> to show that ACTUAL fraud in such numbers as to actually alter the
> results in a 62 million-voter election is impractical, to my mind.
> And there you have it.
>
> Bolaji Aluko
> PS: The Nigerian Bar Association should have more say against Judges
> that make freak statements from the Bench. How does inspecting
> biometric data of elections compromise "national security"? After due
> inquiries - and if not satisfied - the NBA should be temporarily suspend
> them from the Bar, to my mind. Statements too from the bench like "My
> hands are tied" and "This judgment shall not be used as precedent" are
> anathema to justice and should not be made to stand.
>
> --- In NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com, okoi_advocate@ wrote:
> >
> > Prof. I totally agree with your position that the planning for 2015
> should start now. However I do not think that the "limited integrity "
> make proof of fraud difficult. I was in the Legal team of the CPC in the
> case filed by it challenging the return of President Jonathan in the
> 2011 general election. We make a sustained and concerted efforts made by
> us (legal team) to establish that votes purported scored by Jonathan in
> the South/South and South East were phantom and fake using scientific
> analysis by examination and matching of the thumb prints on the ballot
> papers with their finger prints using biometric data of registered
> voters was frustrated by INEC. The Court of Appeal granted our
> application to inspect the biometric (which INEC did not oppose) but
> later turn round to set it aside on the ground that it would amount to
> compromise of " national security" to allow the use of Biometric
> technology to examine the ballot papers used to conduct election.
> > ------Original Message------
> > From: Bolaji
> > Sender: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> > To: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> > ReplyTo: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [NaijaPolitics] Re: Ibori’s saga, a psychia tric test
> reminder for le aders
> > Sent: 30 Apr 2012 08:03
> >
> >
> > Okoi:
> > I cannot challenge your eye-witness and professional-case-witness
> accounts of WHY you believe - or even know - that post-election
> litigation dropped significantly after the 2011 elections. The fact is
> that they dropped, partially due to the (limited) integrity of the
> process itself which would make fraud difficult to prove, and partially
> for lack of trust in the judicial process. Which of the two has more
> weight is an object of speculation.
> > That being said, we should keep along the track of the 2011 general
> elections, and start to improve on it NOW rather than wait until 2014.
> > And there you have it.
> >
> > Bolaji Aluko
> >
> > --- In NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com, okoi_advocate@ wrote:
> > >
> > > The significant drop in post election litigation is not an
> indication that the 2011 general election was better conducted. I can
> say with all amount of confidence that the drop in post election
> litigation after the 2011 general election is as a result of lot of
> people not having faith any longer in the judiciary as an impartial
> arbiter in the resolution of post election disputes. Election litigation
> is also very expensive and not many defeated candidates can afford to
> pay huge fees to lawyers to handle their cases. Election litigation is
> very technical and intricate and therefore any candidate who wants
> result at an election litigation case must be ready to retain a top
> Barrister who has experience on election litigation to conduct his case.
> Election tribunals rely so much on technicalities so much so that the
> chances of a Petitioner getting justice is usually very remote. Election
> tribunals are notoriously corrupt and there is a likelihood that money
> will be used by those whose results have been challenged to compromise
> them. I have experience as Counsel on election litigation right from
> 2003 I know what I am taking about. I have resolved that I will never
> advice any client to challenge an election result under there is a
> fundamental change in the system. If the 2011 general election was
> better conducted; why did INEC refused to
> > Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
> >
>
Again, I sympathize, but political parties and electoral watchdog NGOs have a LOT of work to do BEFORE, DURING and AFTER elections - on the Electoral Law itself, on the deadlines specified in the Law themselves, on the PROCESS of the elections itself, AND even immediately after the elections themselves. No election is perfect, but work must be done ahead of time is so as to CONFINE the number of ballots to be challenged after the elections to the barest practical minimimum. To depend just on a dragnet procedure of millions of ballot papers as CPC tried to do AFTER the election is simply impractical. The process that ACN did in the gubernatorial elections in Ekiti State was more practical and eventually successful, albeit still very challenging.
Some of the VERY letters of the Law themselves should not have been permitted at all. For example, the lack of requirement that the name and picture of a candidate should be on a ballot paper is a clear indication that the Party is considered to be supreme to the Candidate, and that the character and credentials of the Candidate are ultimately irrelevant. So no matter who Buhari is as a person, how good or bad a candidate is, the underlying assumption is that it is the Party and not the Candidate that is being voted for. So why all the fuss on Buhari as a person by CPC when Buhari's name and picture are not on the Ballot paper. Or was it? Afterall, he was not an Independent candidate. Furthermore, when names of candidates are substituted at will at last minute, it is that non-specification that permits such shenanigans.
If for example we already knew that "...the law places the burden on a Petitioner to prove that an election was vitiated by fraud....Don't you think the onus should be on INEC to establish that it conducted the election in substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act? Do you know that it is practically impossible for a Petitioner to win a election Petition in the country today." .....then we already knew the roadblock in proving the cases of fraud, since that was the extant law. But if the burden could be shifted to INEC AFTER a prima facie case was made by the aggrieved party - maybe "as ALLOWED by law to use (of its choice in the presidential election) 620,000 votes in 9 states and over 70 local governments and 1,200 polling units to INDICATE fraud" - then we would have a fairer level playing ground.
Or take the issue where voters registers and ballot paper samples should by law be provided to political parties and interested individuals electronically and manually within a certain number of weeks of the elections. What is the sanction for violating this simple and COMPLETELY mandatory stipulation? The Electoral law does not stipulate. How and why do you then go to an election - unless you have some veritable counter-measures - when you don't know who are voting, whether your name is on the electoral roll or not, where you should be voting, what kind of ballot paper will confront you on Election Day, etc.? Should some wary and vigilant political parties and NGOs not have SUED INEC before the courts IMMEDIATELY the deadline was passed and these important pieces of information were not forthcoming? Rather, the parties were so busy campaigning that they ignored the needful - or thought that they would deal with the matter AFTER the elections, to their bitter disappointment that the horse had long bolted the stable.
What is ultimately most crucial is what you do in monitoring the elections proper.
During the elections proper, monitoring the election booths BEFORE, during and even IMMEDIATELY after, with as many agents as possible armed with still and video cameras - and more meaningfully in collaboration with "opposition" parties of each polling unit - would be the only way to go. Notice that I believe that in every Polling Unit, there is one favored party (in terms of perceived greatest strength) and the rest are "opposition" parties who it is in their interest to prevent an undue inflation of votes by that favored party. So while CPC might be collaborating with PDP against ACN in some South-Western polling booths, it might be collaborating with APGA in some South-Eastern booths against PDP, while PDP and ACN might be collaborating in some Northern booths against CPC, if it is in the interest of ALL to prevent electoral abuse. Of course, there might be some polling booths in various situations where the party favored overall in the state is not the one favored in that polling booth, so all the other parties should hold that party down to ensure that it fulfils all righteousness. But if all the interest is to prevent electoral abuse against yourself in other areas, while you practice it in your area of strength, that is not fair. You could then be subject to outrageous cheating elsewhere because you have not built a strategic alliance with oppositional parties of like mind. I believe that was CPC's error in the South-East, where a suspicion of serious over-voting - which I strongly share - could have been proven not by mere suspicion of incredible statistics but verifiable documentation in certain SPECIFIC polling booths.
Just one minor point on Prof. Cyril Onwuliri - that is the "instance (you) found that the Returning Officer of IMO State in the presidential election was the spouse of the present Minister of State for Foreign Affairs." - see report below, showing the vigilance of one of the political parties in the matter. The fact of the matter is that he was Vice-Chancellor of FUTO - and Jega ROUTINELY uses us VCs as Chief returning officers. [Even I was asked to be a Returning Officer last year - within two months of my appointment - but my letter conveniently arrived late, or my whereabouts were not exactly determined. Same in the Guber elections in Bayelsa of this year - mercifully not conscripted for VC duty. I am sure that some other parties might also have complained about me as a known sympathizer of one of the political parties - but I digress! :-)]
Interestingly, of course, the Governor of Imo State today is NOT Ohakim...so go figure.
Finally, I would urge a good tooth-combing of the Uwais Recommendations. Commendable as they are, it is not ALL of the Recommendations that should be accepted hook, line and sinker. Please don't ask me which or which not.....
And there you have it.
Bolaji Aluko
QUOTE
Imo ACN kicks against FUTO VC as returning officer
12:00 am
Email0
ACTION Congress of Nigeria, ACN, has kicked against the appointment of the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Owerri FUTO, Professor Cyril Onwuliri, as the collating and returning officer for the presidential and governorship elections in Imo State.
Professor Onwuliri is the husband of Professor Viola Onwuliri, incumbent Governor Ikedi Ohakim's running mate in the April 26 governorship elections in Imo State.
Incidentally, Ohakim's running mate also teaches in the same school and her husband is billed to retire in June just two months after the elections.
The party, which had earlier complained about the appointment of several FUTO lecturers as returning officers, had expressed fears that if the situation was left unchecked, it could lead to violence and chaos in the state, since the VC had vowed to return the incumbent governor and allow for litigations since his retirement was just by the corner.
Letter of appointment
In the letter of appointment, INEC.CHROEVOL.1, signed by Jega, the INEC chairman claimed that "those appointed are very senior high level personnel in the public service who have proven themselves to be persons of high integrity, imbued with a strong sense of public responsibility."
Jega, therefore, directed the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mrs. Rose Oko, that "you are, therefore, requested to accord these officials the needed assistance and cooperation to enable them discharge their duties efficiently and as expected."
He confirmed that "for your state, the person appointed is Professor Celestine O.E. Onwuliri, Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Technology, Owerri (contact details withheld).Please contact him and offer him all the necessary support and assistance."
ACN is, however, worried that there was no way the state REC could be an unbiased umpire, having accepted accommodation by the state government where she is quartered among serving commissioners in the state. It also accused Jega of withholding her accommodation allowance.
The state REC also claimed that the INEC chairman failed to pay their housing allowance while he returned over N2.5 billion to the federal treasury.
Governorship candidate of the party in Imo State, Senator Ifeanyi Ararume, while reacting to the information yesterday, explained that having complained about the character of the REC and her utterances since she resumed in Owerri, Jega should have thrown her away to ensure transparency.
He said: " I am not surprised that such sensitive information has been hidden from the electorate and INEC top brass by Mrs. Oko. There is no way transparency could be ensured if the PDP running mate was until her selection a lecturer of FUTO and the husband still in service and the lecturers from the school appointed as Returning Officers.
They are already boasting and Jega should do the right thing immediately"
Araraume who was speaking from his Country home in Mbano said the INEC chairman should not allow Nigerians to further suffer by ensuring that Imo state is saved from the trouble of shoddy and biased conduct of the April Elections
Chairman of the party in the state, Honourable Charles Uba accused the PDP led government of circulating fake ballot papers since last Monday.
Uba said INEC should not allow the mockery of last Saturday to repeat itself and ensure that the Result Sheets accompany all the required materials to the polling Centres to avoid the diversion of materials and delay in some of the boots as witnessed last Saturday.
UNQUOTE
--- In NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com, Dominic Ogbonna <enyimocha@...> wrote
"I was in the Legal team of the CPC in the case filed by it challenging the return of President Jonathan in the 2011 general election. We make a sustained and concerted efforts made by us (legal team) to establish that votes purported scored by Jonathan in the South/South and South East were phantom and fake using scientific analysis by examination and matching of the thumb prints on the ballot papers with their finger prints using biometric data of registered voters was frustrated by INEC."
I am sorry, but in this case, "scientific analysis" is bullshit. You are wasting your time talking highfalutin stuff, because your party has not even mastered the BASIC stuff. To any fair observer, the organizational incompetence of CPC boggles my mind. I mean, we are talking Nigeria, right? Throughout the election period, CPC could NOT even send its own agents to monitor the elections in the South-East. You were completely AWOL -fighting over money in Lagos, while other parties were jealously guarding their votes. Your candidate spent less than 40 minutes campaining in the South-East. On election day, you could not even bother to send pooling agents to pooling booths. And yet, after it was all said and done, you turn around and start proving fraud via "scientific analysis" of 60 million biometric data? Are you kidding me?
You guys are jokers. If it was up to me, if I see any of you in the South-East talking electoral fraud, I will string you up by the balls and hang you from a mango tree. That's the only treatment that will cure your incompetence and electoral unseriousness.
If you want to win an election -you have to do what AGPA did in Imo State: stand up and fight! You can not spend all of 30 minutes campaigning in the South-East, and then expect to grab a win.
Dominic
--- In NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com, okoi_advocate@... wrote:
>
> Prof,to small extent I agree with you that it is a huge challenge to examine ballot papers for 120000 polling units. However CPC was not challenging the results of the election in the entire country but only in the South/South and South East States where Jonathan scored in the average of 98 percent of the total votes cast in each of these States. Is it possible for Jonathan to score such percentage taking into account the report that the general voters turn out in some of these States were in the region of 58 percent ? So how did INEC came by these huge return in the States? Are such huge turnout consistent with international trends in electoral contest? Why did INEC wait for returns from all other parts of the country to be collated and announced more than forty eights before that of SS and SE States ? Why should the law place the burden on a Petitioner to prove that an election was vitiated by fraud? Don't you think the onus should be on INEC to establish that it conducted the election in substantial compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act? Do you know that it is practically impossible for a Petitioner to win a election Petition in the country today. The gains made in 2007 in some States where some returns in the governor ship elections were nullified were wiped away in the 2011 because the Judges became stoutly insurmountable blocks to Petitioners by stifling and strict interpretation of the law. Despite the fact that the Court of Appeal in the cases of Edo, Ondo, Ekiti, Cross River , Osun States had held that the burden of Proof lies on INEC to show that there was no excess voting or that the election was conducted in strict compliance with the guidelines made by it for the election in respect of the 2007 election,the Same Court of Appeal in the CPC vs Jonathan refused to follow these decisions. I think there are provisions in the 2010 Electoral Act which was used to conduct 2011 election making it a criminal offence for anybody to snatch a ballot box. However INEC refused to act in cases where the provisions of the Electoral Act where infringed. Multiple thumb printing is also prohibited. In many cases these offences were committed in active connivance with INEC officials. For instance we found that the Returning Officer of IMO State in the presidential election was the spouse of the present Minister of State for Foreign Affairs. In Anambra State it was established during cross examination of one Professor Egboka (Returning Officer for Anambra State in the Presidential election ) that accreditation took place at 3pm contrary to the Guidelines of INEC but the Court of Appeal refused to act on the evidence. So this is the challenge of election litigation in the country. I will therefore suggest that the entire Recommendations made by the Uwais Committee be adopted by the National Assembly and enacted into Law otherwise; we shall continue to have questionable elections in the country with the concomitant illegitimacy problems on any government that emerges from such patently dubious mandates.
> Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: "Bolaji" alukome@...
> Sender: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> Date: Tue, 01 May 2012 02:05:16
> To: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> Reply-To: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> Subject: [NaijaPolitics] Re: Ibori’s saga, a psychia tric test reminder for le aders
>
>
>
> Okoi:
> I sympathize with those who use - or try to use - biometric data
> (particularly fingerprints) - to prove lack of integrity in a particular
> election. There are just PRACTICAL HURDLES that are essentially
> insurmountable if the numbers to be inspected are more than (say)
> 100,000 to 200,000, (and no less than 30,000) as was the case in Ekiti
> State, and IF evidence of fraud in that small number DOES NOT lead to an
> alteration of the results. For CPC to be asking for inspection of
> millions of presidential election ballot papers - with the hope that
> finding the fraud would alter the results and lead to complete
> cancellation or determination in its candidate's favor - is impractical
> and would look like a dragnet.
> If there are 62 million votes, 36 states, 774 local governments and
> 120,000 polling units, how many of these votes can one really look at by
> biometric forensic action WITHIN A REASONABLE TIME to determine that the
> fraudulent voting ACTUALLY AFFECTS the outcome of the elections? The
> problem is the CRIMINALIZATION of thumb-printing and ballot-snatching -
> which require overwhelming and incontrovertible evidence - as different
> from a civil "crime", which requires only substantial and reasonable
> evidence. If for example, the law were to be changed to indicate that
> "A Party which shows (by any forensic means) through the inspection of
> no more than 200,000 ballot papers in each of 1-25% of the electoral
> divisions (with requirement of geographical distribution) and/or number
> of electorates of the relevant Electoral District (depending on the
> actual election) that fraud would alter the declared winner, that
> election shall be cancelled."
> If, for example, CPC was ALLOWED by law to use (of its choice) 620,000
> votes in 9 states and over 70 local governments and 1,200 polling units
> to SHOW fraud, with the hope that the entire election would be cancelled
> under such a finding, one would consider that reasonable. ANy attempt
> to show that ACTUAL fraud in such numbers as to actually alter the
> results in a 62 million-voter election is impractical, to my mind.
> And there you have it.
>
> Bolaji Aluko
> PS: The Nigerian Bar Association should have more say against Judges
> that make freak statements from the Bench. How does inspecting
> biometric data of elections compromise "national security"? After due
> inquiries - and if not satisfied - the NBA should be temporarily suspend
> them from the Bar, to my mind. Statements too from the bench like "My
> hands are tied" and "This judgment shall not be used as precedent" are
> anathema to justice and should not be made to stand.
>
> --- In NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com, okoi_advocate@ wrote:
> >
> > Prof. I totally agree with your position that the planning for 2015
> should start now. However I do not think that the "limited integrity "
> make proof of fraud difficult. I was in the Legal team of the CPC in the
> case filed by it challenging the return of President Jonathan in the
> 2011 general election. We make a sustained and concerted efforts made by
> us (legal team) to establish that votes purported scored by Jonathan in
> the South/South and South East were phantom and fake using scientific
> analysis by examination and matching of the thumb prints on the ballot
> papers with their finger prints using biometric data of registered
> voters was frustrated by INEC. The Court of Appeal granted our
> application to inspect the biometric (which INEC did not oppose) but
> later turn round to set it aside on the ground that it would amount to
> compromise of " national security" to allow the use of Biometric
> technology to examine the ballot papers used to conduct election.
> > ------Original Message------
> > From: Bolaji
> > Sender: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> > To: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> > ReplyTo: NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com
> > Subject: [NaijaPolitics] Re: Ibori’s saga, a psychia tric test
> reminder for le aders
> > Sent: 30 Apr 2012 08:03
> >
> >
> > Okoi:
> > I cannot challenge your eye-witness and professional-case-witness
> accounts of WHY you believe - or even know - that post-election
> litigation dropped significantly after the 2011 elections. The fact is
> that they dropped, partially due to the (limited) integrity of the
> process itself which would make fraud difficult to prove, and partially
> for lack of trust in the judicial process. Which of the two has more
> weight is an object of speculation.
> > That being said, we should keep along the track of the 2011 general
> elections, and start to improve on it NOW rather than wait until 2014.
> > And there you have it.
> >
> > Bolaji Aluko
> >
> > --- In NaijaPolitics@yahoogroups.com, okoi_advocate@ wrote:
> > >
> > > The significant drop in post election litigation is not an
> indication that the 2011 general election was better conducted. I can
> say with all amount of confidence that the drop in post election
> litigation after the 2011 general election is as a result of lot of
> people not having faith any longer in the judiciary as an impartial
> arbiter in the resolution of post election disputes. Election litigation
> is also very expensive and not many defeated candidates can afford to
> pay huge fees to lawyers to handle their cases. Election litigation is
> very technical and intricate and therefore any candidate who wants
> result at an election litigation case must be ready to retain a top
> Barrister who has experience on election litigation to conduct his case.
> Election tribunals rely so much on technicalities so much so that the
> chances of a Petitioner getting justice is usually very remote. Election
> tribunals are notoriously corrupt and there is a likelihood that money
> will be used by those whose results have been challenged to compromise
> them. I have experience as Counsel on election litigation right from
> 2003 I know what I am taking about. I have resolved that I will never
> advice any client to challenge an election result under there is a
> fundamental change in the system. If the 2011 general election was
> better conducted; why did INEC refused to
> > Sent from my BlackBerry wireless device from MTN
> >
>
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