By Nathan Eyagu
SOROTI
Soroti High Court has dismissed a petition challenging the victory of Hon, Juliet Acayo Lodou as MP for Ngora County.
Delivering her ruling yesterday 12th October 2021, Lady Justice Jane Okuo Kajuga said Achayo legitimately won the election with 11,556 against the petitioner, David Abala’ 9,226. Both parties were told to meet their costs.
Achayo was given additional 2,049 votes to secure her victory by the court on top of the 9,517 votes that was declared before.
The Judge in her ruling found out that the results that were used for declaring Abala by the District EC Returning Officer were incomplete.
The court also heard that the returning officer, Toddu declared partial results due to network problems in uploading results.
The court, which was faced with the task of determining whether Achayo was validly elected in accordance with the provisions of the law, found that whereas there were contradictions in the tallying and declaration of results, the petitioner failed to prove his case.
“The petitioner must produce proof that the effect of non- compliance with the law on the result was substantial. Even if there were irregularities, the petitioner is expected to demonstrate the effect they had in the results to the satisfaction of the court,” reads part of the judgement.
Justice Okuo however, said she found that the declaration of the results by the Electoral Commission contravened provisions of the law and that the tallying of the results was incorrect.
The Judge also added that voters from eleven polling stations were not satisfied because their votes were not taken into consideration during the tallying.
The said polling stations include Kodike PAG Church, Kodike Primary School, Nyamongo Mango tree, Kalengo Primary School, Opot Primary School, Aagu Primary School, Agolitom Primary School, Kees Catholic Church, Acoroit Mango Tree and Odwarat Primary School, among others.
But she also added that although the failures of the EC affected the results, court was faced with the mandate to set aside the declarations with justifiable costs or uphold the result of the election as true reflection of the voters’ will.
The judge based her ruling on the declaration forms tendered by EC after trashing the tally sheets and return form for the transmission of results presented by the same.
“There is no evidence from the petitioner that his declaration was based on the 65 Polling Stations neither did EC produce evidence that the first declaration was based on the partial results from the 54 Polling Stations. Court was, therefore, unable to determine votes in the remaining eleven Polling Stations,” the Judge’s ruling continued.
In her ruling, Justice Okuo said that there were major contradictions in results of the Ngora County election based on the affidavits of the returning officer, Toddu. In the vote tally sheet, Toddu said that Abala polled 8,317 while Achayo polled 7,828 yet in the supplementary affidavit, he indicated that Abala got 8,303 votes against Achayo’s 7,513 votes.
The same officer in the same affidavit, gave Abala 8,865 votes and Achayo 9,108 while EC Kampala declared Achayo with 9,517 votes against 9,286 votes for Abala.
But the evidence in the said irregularities was struck off in the 25 affidavits filed by Abala during the preliminary objections in the case. The matter was then determined with just an affidavit, also the petitioner’s affidavit.
Lodou was represented by three lawyers, Evans Ochieng, Okello Oryem and Joseph Chaza while Philip Engulu represented Abala.
According to one of the lawyers who represented Lodou, Evans Ochieng, he appreciated courts’ decision following a few mistakes during the election.
“What’s important is that Juliet Achayo won and those other claims of fraud were investigated extensively that even with the addition of all the 65 polling stations, she still won as opposed to the earlier declaration and if they appeal in the next 14 days, we shall also be ready,” he added.
Achayo who never expected such a ruling told the media that she was so speechless and happy as court found no merit to dismiss her election as the MP of Ngora County. She also said that she had a team of competent lawyers and her case had merit because the people of Ngora voted for her wholeheartedly.
Brief background
It should be noted that during the tight Ngora county parliamentary elections, Peter Toddu, the Ngora district returning officer declared Hon. Abala as the MP-elect for Ngora County on January 15, 2021, after he got 8,317 votes against his closet rival Achayo, who polled 7,828 votes.
This partial declaration of results forced Achayo who wasn’t satisfied with the electoral results to run to soroti high court for a vote recount arguing that Abala was declared winner on the basis of 54 out of 65 polling stations.
The High Court however dismissed her application on grounds of insufficient evidence.
But later in February, the EC head office announced Achayo as the Ngora county parliamentary election victor. The EC spokesman, Paul Bukenya said then that the votes from eleven polling that were not included were all later summed up giving Lodou 9,517 votes against Abala’s 9,226 votes forcing Abala to go to court.
