WHETHER AN ELECTION PETITION IS COMPETENT WHEN THE CANDIDATE BUT ONLY THE POLITICAL PARTY IS THE PETITIONER?

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WHETHER AN ELECTION PETITION IS COMPETENT WHEN THE CANDIDATE BUT ONLY THE POLITICAL PARTY IS THE PETITIONER? 

by Branham Chima. 
Subscribe: https://branhamchima.substack.com/embed 

✓ DEFINITION(S): 
• Election petition: An election petition is a legal challenge or complaint filed by a party or individual dissatisfied with the outcome of an election. It is a formal legal process through which a petitioner seeks the court's intervention to review and potentially overturn the results of an election. 

• Competent: means valid at law. 

✓ ANSWER: 
Yes. An election petition is valid even if only the political party is the petitioner. The candidate sponsored by the political party need not be added as a co-petitioner. 

This position was affirmed in the recent decision of the Court of Appeal in Yusuf Kabir v. APC, INEC, NNPP (CA/KN/EP/GOV/KAN/34/2023, 17TH DAY OF NOVEMBER 2023) thus: ‘The cases relied upon, including Andrew v. INEC (2017) LPELR 42161 (CA), by the appellant to advance his case are not applicable to this case, with its peculiar circumstances and facts. Without any rigmarole, the appellant's complaints that the candidate sponsored for the general election by the 1st respondent, Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna, was a necessary party who ought to have been joined as a petitioner to the 1st respondent's petition has no sound legal prop upon it can stand. This is because under section 133(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022 "an election petition may be presented by... a candidate in an election; or... a political party which participated in the election." The use of the word "or" by the Legislature in section 133(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022 is very instructive, because in the interpretation of statutes the word "or", in its ordinary usage, is disjunctive. See the case of Da Karikim & Anor. v. Hon. Justice Luke Emefor & 6 Ors. (2009) 14 NWLR (Pt. 1162) 602 at 623-624, per Onnoghen, JSC; at 640, per Muntaka-Coomasie, JSC. Thus, under section 133(1) of the Electoral Act, 2022 an election petition can be presented either by a candidate who contested the election or the political party which sponsored the candidate. Both the candidate and his political party can also present a joint election petition. Where it is only a political party that presents an election petition, the petition is be deemed as having been presented on behalf of the party's candidate also. This analogy was made by the Supreme Court, whilst interpreting section 137 of the Electoral Act, 2010 in pari materia with section 133 of the Electoral Act, 2022.’ 

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