The Court of Appeal sitting in Benin City, capital of Edo State is to make a final pronouncement over the April 14, 2007, Governorship Election in Delta State following the illegitimate exclusion of Chief Peter Eloka Okocha, Action Congress (AC) Gubernatorial Candidate, from the poll.
Chief Okocha had lugged Governor Emmanuel Ewetan Uduaghan to the 5-man Election Petitions Tribunal in Asaba, the State capital, praying it to annul the April Gubernatorial Election on the grounds that he, Okocha, was unlawfully disqualified by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from contesting the election.
The Tribunal had on Monday, July 16, 2007, ruled on a preliminary objection brought to it by Governor Uduaghan to make certain whether Okocha was qualified to file the petition challenging his (Uduaghan) election as Governor on the platform of the ruling People's Democratic Party (PDP), or not. Presiding over the case, the Tribunal ruled in favour of Chief Okocha, saying, “throughout the length and breath of the application, it has not been suggested that the grounds of the locus standi of the first petitioner (Okocha) to institute the petition is based on any other grounds, save on constitutional disability…. The Tribunal has painstakingly perused the petition, there is nowhere disclosed on the face of the said petition that the alleged unlawful exclusion of the first petitioner (Okocha) from the Governorship Election of April 14, 2007, of the first respondent (INEC), was predicated on the report of any panel of inquiry set up by the Federal Government.”
The main petition was put down for definite hearing on Friday, August 13, 2007; but INEC filed another preliminary objection against Okocha's petition. The objection was also on the issue of locus standi of Okocha at the Tribunal, which was earlier brought by Uduaghan and struck out. However, when the case came up on Tuesday, September 11, 2007, the Tribunal upheld the objection of INEC that Okocha had no locus standi at the Tribunal, and consequently struck out the entire suit brought before it by Okocha and his party, AC.
INEC argued: “The averments in the petition show that the first petitioner (Okocha) was not a Candidate and the second petitioner (AC) did not participate in the Governorship Election held on 14th April, 2007.”
            But Okocha and AC have taken the matter to the Appeal Court in Benin City, praying it to upturn the decision of the Tribunal, which according to them, is wrong. Counsel to Okocha, Chief Olisa Agbakoba (SAN) is maintaining that his clients (Okocha and AC) have the locus standi for the action because Section 145(d) of the Electoral Act 2006 provided that a person unlawfully disqualified from an election could institute a petition challenging the legality of such election. 
            “We expect that the Appeal Court being higher and by virtue of its function, which puts it in the position to review decisions of lower courts, including the Asaba Tribunal, will correctly interpret the law, particularly the 2006 Electoral Act in a way to carry the true intention of the legislature. Our position is that, as provided by the laws of our land, Okocha can go to Tribunal with full locus standi and complain over his wrongful exclusion from the April 14, 2007 Governorship Election in Delta State. Okocha and others like him should be allowed to complain and be heard at the Tribunal. What the Asaba ruling has simply said is that he, Okocha, should first show that he is a Candidate or that he participated in the election in the first place. The injustice here is that nobody excluded can complain or be heard in the first place,” Barr. Chijioke Emeka from Chief Agbakoba (SAN) Chambers further stated.
            It would be recalled that the Election Petitions Tribunals across the country have in recent times nullified various elections and ordered for fresh ones, and the Governorship case of Delta State is in certain aspects similar to those of Kogi and Rivers States, among others, which have been nullified. The Appeal Court is the final bus stop for all election petitions cases across the country, as it cannot be taken to the Supreme Court, the apex Court of the land.
Either way, the Appeal Court day of Armageddon will kick Governor Uduaghan out of Government House, Asaba, or smother Chief Okocha and AC with ostracized legal technicalities while the former (Uduaghan) continues with his yet-to-be seen three focal points agenda of peace and security, human capital and infrastructural development programmes for the State.