Hon. Henry Seriake Dickson V. Chief Timipre Marlin Sylva & Ors (2016)

LAWGLOBAL HUB Lead Judgment Report

CHIMA CENTUS NWEZE, J.S.C

My Lords, the issue that calls for the intervention of this Court, in this interlocutory appeal, falls within a very compass. I shall revert to it anon. Before then, however, permit my intimation of its forensic travelogue through the rungs of the two lower Courts, namely, the Governorship Election Tribunal (hereinafter, simply, called the Trial Tribunal) and the Court of Appeal (in this judgment to be, simply, called the lower Court).

The third respondent in this appeal, the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC for short), conducted elections into the office of the Governor of Bayelsa State on December 5 and 6, 2015 and January 9, 2016. While the second respondent herein, All Progressives Congress (A.P.C.), sponsored the candidature of the first respondent, Chief Timipre Marlin Sylva; the appellant, in this appeal, Hon Henry Seriake Dickson, contested the said election under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (P.D.P.), the fourth respondent in this appeal.

Irked by INEC’s declaration of the due return

1

and due election of the appellant in the said election, the first and second respondents (as petitioners) repaired to the Trial Tribunal with their petition wherein they challenged the election and declaration of the appellant as the duly elected Governor of Bayelsa State. As is usual in forensic contests of this nature, the averments in the petitioners pleadings prompted vociferous and strident joinder of issues by the respondents. In all, issues were joined in the settled pleadings: issues which are yet to be determined by the Trial Tribunal.

Against this background, considerable circumspection is called for in this judgment, being a judgment in an interlocutory appeal, so as not to breach any aspect of the substantive issues that must, perforce, abide the final judgment of the said Trial Tribunal. To do otherwise would be to usurp its sole prerogative, nay more, to pre-empt and prejudice its ultimate decision as the forum of first instance.

In consequence, this factual narrative would be strictly, cabined to the facts that are relevant for the determination of this interlocutory appeal apropos the narrow issue raised therein. What is

2

more, there is even no doubt that what prompted the sequence of entreaties at the Trial Tribunal was the averment in paragraph 23 of the petition. The appellants averred thus:

23. Your Petitioners state that prior to the unilateral cancellation aforesaid [a fact deposed to in paragraphs 20 and 21 of the said Petition], the Returning Officer of the Bayelsa State Governorship election, Prof. Zana Akpagu, had announced to the whole world that election was conducted in Southern Ijaw Local Government Area and the result was being awaited. Your Petitioners hereby plead the video/CD/DVD/audio clip and newspaper report of the said announcement and shall rely on it (sic) at the trial.

(Italics supplied for emphasis)

In the course of the hearing, and sequel to an entreaty by the first and second respondents, the trial Tribunal, on April 29, 2016, caused a Subpoena Duces Tecum Ad Testificandun to be issued on Pedro Innocent or the production Manager of Channels Television, Lagos to testify and produce the DVD/CD/VCD/Audio Recording and Video Clips of the coverage of 5th/6th December, 2015, Governorship Election in Bayelsa State in respect of the Southern

3

Ijaw Local Government Area of the State, page 348 of the record. [In legal parlance, the above-mentioned Subpoena is a process to cause a witness to appear and tender a document and testify. This process commands him to lay aside all pretences and excuses and appear before a Court therein named, at a time therein mentioned to bring with him and produce to the Court, books, papers, in his hands, tending to elucidate the matter in issue].