Eleka's Appeal On Recount Suffers Another Defeat

The Court of Appeal sitting in Abuja on Tuesday dismissed the appeal filed by the People's Democratic Party's governorship candidate, Prof Olusola Kokapo challenging the Ruling of the Ekiti Governorship Tribunal on the recount of all the ballot papers used during the Ekiti Governorship Election.

This was among other prayers that were refused by the Tribunal. The Court of Appeal in their unanimous judgment affirmed all the findings and conclusions of the Tribunal and dismissed the Appeal.

The Court agreed with the Tribunal that the Secretary of the Tribunal cannot participate in the recount as prayed for by the Appellants who are Petitioners before the Tribunal. The Court of Appeal further held that the power to conduct a recount is vested in the Presiding Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The Court of Appeal agreed with the findings of the Tribunal that the sole paragraph of the petition upon which the application to recount was premised was "bogus, nebulous and vague and as such, the application for a recount cannot be anchored on the paragraph".

It would be recalled that the PDP's petition suffered a serious set back last month when its Motion to conduct a recount of all the ballot papers used during the conduct of the Governorship Election in Ekiti State was dismissed by the Hon. Tribunal.

The grounds for refusing basically were the generic nature of the pleadings on recount and the invol