HIS LORDSHIP JULIUS ANSAH ON PRESIDING OFFICERS NOT SIGNING. It is not difficult to interpret the meaning of these provisions. They mean that the persons named therein, namely the presiding officer, the candidates or their representatives and the counting agents, shall sign the declaration form stating the particularized items. There was no mention made of ‘polling assistants’ in the two provisions let alone requiring them to sign the declaration form. If therefore they did not sign the forms they committed no irregularity; none could therefore use that failure to found or support a case of irregularity or violation of any law. But the presiding officer was not relieved from the duty to sign the declaration forms; it was a mandatory duty cast on them by the constitutional and statutory provisions governing elections in the country; the legitimate inference is that failure by the presiding officer to sign the declaration form is an irregularity which cannot be excused or waived on the grounds that the pressure of time, prevailing atmospheric condition, etc, etc, did not simply allow or permit them to sign the forms and thereby comply with the constitutional duty.
Posted on: Wed, 04 Sep 2013 06:53:14 +0000