Justice Sylvester Nsofor who was one of the four justices that heard the petition dissented on the lead judgment and annulled the entire presidential election held on April 19, 2003.
He said, “based on the failure of the Independent National Electoral Comm-ission (INEC) to obey the court order to produce the certified true copy of the election for the purpose of determination, the petition on this ground alone succeeded.”
He noted that INEC was on September 28, 2004 ser-ved a subpoena to produce results in its possession, but it however failed to obey the order. “Had INEC obeyed, the statement of results would conclusively have shown the alleged malpractices that scores were assigned to candidates by the INEC.
Justice Nsofor added, “The petition on this ground alone succeed, the election conducted by INEC was no election consequently, it stands annulled.
“I was convinced that ANPP agents were not given opportunity to certify elec-ion materials as required by law. There was a purported election on April 19, 2003, that was not what Nigerians would want and deserve to have. All I am striving to say is that there was no compliance with section 63 and 67 of the Electoral Act.”
He noted that non-compliance with the Electoral Act renders the presidential election a farce, pure and simple. So it means there was no election.
Justice Nsofor said that allegation of falsification of figures speak for itself from the evidence before the court, saying that INEC’s attitude only gave coverage to the election fraud.
On the issue of thumb printing, Justice Nsofor said, “I wonder why INEC should allow any finger rather than the thumb. An electoral guid-eline is meant to be obeyed and not disrespected. Finger printing in my opinion const-itutes an aberration of the electoral guidelines as it allo-wed for multiple voting by some people.”
He asked, “By what law did Nigerians vote not using voters cards but voter slip? Section 40 of the Electoral Act 2002 stipulated that every registered voter must go to vote with voters card, the normal thing should have been no voters card, no voting because voting with slip gave way for unauthorized voting.”
He said that oath taking is mandatory precondition for deployment of INEC staff to conduct election adding that deployment of military personnel and police to various states during the elec-tion was unconstitutional.
“I am satisfied from the evidence given, that the police dispatched were depl-oyed to intimidate voters in otherwise peaceful environment. Why was not a single victim of their indiscriminate shooting not involve a member of PDP? All the victims were ANPP members and when they complained, there was no arrest.”
He added that he believed that the disputed police signal that members of the PDP had given cooperation emanated from the police authority. “I attach no value to the evidence of those who told the court that the signal did not emanate from the Inspector-General of Police, I disbelieve them.”
He noted that “President Obasanjo did not secure votes in 24 of the 36 states in the country. There was no election in several states of the federation.”
Justice Nsofor said that the petition succeeded and prayed that never again sho-uld Nigerians see a black Saturday like that of April 19th, 2003. “I hereby nullify the entire election accor-dingly.”
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