Edo Election Petition Tribunal Update: INEC Finally Presents One Witnesses

Edo Election Petition Tribunal Update: INEC Finally Presents One  Witnesses

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has closed its defense at the Edo elections tribunal sitting in Benin City without calling a single witness, as all witnesses contacted shunned the commission, but succeeded in resubmitting its certified and verified documents which the petitioners had earlier submitted to the court.

Counsel to the Commission, Onyinye Anumonye told the court at the tribunal’s resumed sitting on Monday, after two consecutive adjournments at the commission’s instance, that as the first respondent it has established its defense to the petition filed by the PDP and its governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who are contesting its role in the 2016 Edo governorship election.

He said it would therefore amount to a waste of the tribunal’s precious time to call witnesses who will only come to repeat the statements already contained in the copious documents the commission has submitted to the court.

According to Anumonye, INEC is confident that with the documents the commission submitted to the court, it has proved and established its defense to the petition based on its earlier cross-examinations of the petitioner’s witnesses.

The tribunal had began sitting by receiving from the commission and admitting in evidence, the same copies of the INEC forms EC8B and EC8C used in the 2016 Edo governorship election earlier submitted by the petitioners for all of the eighteen local government areas in the state.

The forms presented to the court by INEC counsel, except in one or two instances met without any objection by counsel to the PDP and its governorship candidate, Roland Otaru, SAN even as they were labelled exhibits by chairman of the three member tribunal, Justice Ahmed Badamasi.

Thereafter the INEC counsel also sought to present a document which he acknowledged was out of the schedule of proceeding, tittled; ”Supplement to the 2015 guidelines and regulations for the conduct of the elections.”

However, inspite of Otaru, SAN objection to the admission of the ‘supplement’ on the grounds that it should have been presented by a witness from a witness box, the tribunal admitted the document in evidence and labelled it as an exhibit.

The tribunal after hearing from Ken Mozia, SAN, counsel to the second respondent, Governor Godwin Obaseki that it will prefer to open its defense on Thursday which was corroborated by the APC counsel Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, then ruled that hearing on the petition will resume on the 23th of February, 2017.