No doubts, Osun State is today, in the eye of the storm. A storm occasioned by the state’s governorship election petition controversy. And no matter how long this drama takes, it promises to lead somewhere. Like what has been seen of states where issues of disputed elections have been firmly established, the lingering controversy in Osun, if anything, also seeks to offer practical classroom experiment in the near future, either in a law or political science classes.

Although, a few of the judgments at the different election petition tribunals across the country have been subjected to debate owing to the grounds on which such ruling were either thrown out or upheld. But ultimately, the judiciary has more than anyone else, shown keen interest in the total reform of the nation’s political system, at least, from the point of view of the rule of law. This is, therefore, the reason the situation in Osun State has elicited much interest. It is even worrisome that the Justice Naron-led tribunal is believed to have begun to wear the robe of partiality, double standards and partisan antagonism against the Action Congress (AC) candidate, Alhaji Rauf Aregbesola.

And for what is seen of this tribunal so far, it does not seem like one determined to ensure justice in the interest of this fledging but staggering democracy. Need I say voters may resort to self-help should this injustice be allowed to succeed, thus eroding public confidence of voters in the judiciary? Not to worry, my subsequent submissions will justify this line of argument.

In its bid to meet the deadline of May 13, 2007 for filing petitions, AC had applied to the Court for an order to inspect the materials used for the elections. The order was granted on May 22, 2007, 8 days after the deadline. This notwithstanding, the inspection commenced almost immediately. It took 150 days to do this as it ended in December, 2007. But the inspection process was still in progress when the parties to the case held the pre-trial conference on September 5, 2007.

But on August 10, 2007, INEC attempted to obstruct efforts of the AC in gathering evidence from the inspection as it stopped the photocopying and scanning of the inspected materials. The AC therefore applied to the tribunal for specific order to permit scanning and photocopying of ballots and forms and the tribunal granted the order but with a proviso that other respondents (PDP, INEC, Police and SSS) could observe the inspection if they so wished. The scanning, of course, took place at the INEC office in Oshogbo and was conducted by Messers Tunde Yadeka, a software expert and Mr. Bashiru Ajibola, a lawyer. Each scanned material was also indexed and certified by INEC before they were forwaded for analysis. Not less than 250,000 impressions of fingerprints were gathered from this exercise.

At this point, it was common sense that to facilitate the computer analysis of the gathered materials, while the scanning progressed in the INEC office, the scanned and photocopied materials should be stored in hard disks and analysed locally using the standard software by INEC for programming the election. And like the programme is designed, each booklet of ballot paper just like in the case of cheque books, must be allocated to a polling booth.

Besides, a serial numbering system was employed to identify the destination of each booklet of ballot papers. This simply is the basis of INEC’s Form EC 40c (serial number of ballot papers and quantity of ballot papers received) and form EC25 (schedule of distribution of election materials/electoral materials receipt). The implication of this is that it is possible to detect ballot papers that are alien to a station once the serial number of the booklet is ascertained.

And because there is no facility for bio-metric investigation of ballot papers in the country, AC took the pain and effort to employ the services of a world renowned expert, Adrain Forty. The scanned and photocopied materials were sent to his laboratory in Bristol , United Kingdom where he led 48 serving British police and two retired fingerprint experts to work on the 250,000 ballot papers. The essence of the investigation was to use the fingerprints on the ballot papers to ascertain the incident of multiple voting.

Following this, the analysis of the serial number of ballot papers supplied by INEC showed that 30,940 ballot papers used in the governorship elections in the 12 local government areas were used in the wards they were not serially assigned to and that 83,463 ballot papers used were never supplied by INEC officially for the election in the local government areas. Again, from this analysis, not less than 86,821 ballot papers belonged to booklets meant for a polling booth but which were used for two or more polling booths.

And interestingly, the highest percentage of this incidence (63%) was recorded in Ife South. Besides, the stuffing of ballot papers was discovered to have also taken place in 509 polling booths in the 12 local government areas involving 176,512 ballot papers.

Results of the finger print analysis, on the other side, showed that the total ballot papers examined were 224,695; while the total ballot papers with multiple votes were 93,088. As such, the percentage of total ballot papers with multiple votes was put at 41.43 percent. With this, there is no doubting the fact that the clinical evidence unearthed by this rigorous investigation and analysis has scientifically explained and exposed the electoral fraud in a manner that would have been incontrovertible. Not even Adrian Forty could manipulate what had been uncovered.

But it was comprehensible that the parties whose interest would be jeopardised by the analysis would do everything humanly possible to obstruct the course of truth before the tribunal. What was, however, strange is the disposition of the tribunal, a judicial organ charged with the investigation of electoral fraud, to seek to align with those who seek to perpetrate injustice. For one, by merely conceding to the argument of the defendant that the AC candidate should not be given more time to present his evidence through a witness already profiled in frontloading his case is nothing but an attempt by the tribunal to abort the cause of justice.

Although, the AC has since filed a motion before the Court of Appeal to rule on the decision of the tribunal on grounds of law, much as it had also applied to the tribunal to stay proceedings until the appeal court adjudicates on its right to more time and more evidence in the pursuit of justice for the people.

Clearly, the AC has shown more than enough proofs that it has a case, even though the Appeal will also go a long way in assisting the course of justice. The fact that the AC came this far in pursuing justice and the rule of law is not only worthy of note, but a development that should be encouraged in future elections. The party knew it had a responsibility to prove its case and has left no stone unturned in doing this, more so in a way to eliminate doubts. It is not that the tribunal should give a blanket ruling in favour of AC or any party for that matter, but doing so on the premise of evidence proven beyond reasonable doubts.

Nigeria’s democracy is under-going the process of genuine rebirth. The judiciary, of course, is a key stakeholder. So, Nigeria and indeed, the world are waiting to see how the judiciary will fare in the disputed election controversy in Osun. The choice is the judiciary; whether or not it will make use of this forensic initiative, at least for posterity sake.

Onakoya writes from Ife