Mr. Obasekis Counsel Pleas For Adjournment As Witnesses Disgrace Them

 Mr. Obasekis Counsel Pleas For Adjournment As Witnesses Disgrace Them

Following events at the ongoing Edo state tribunal, Benin city, it would not be out of place to say, Mr Godwin Obaseki who is the second respondent in the petition filed by the PDP and its candidate in the 2016 Edo governorship elections, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu has admitted that the few witnesses he has called so far to testify in his defense before the tribunal have delivered below expectation and prediction.

This became evident at Thursday’s sitting when his counsel, Oyetunji Oyeyipo, SAN , asked for adjournment despite having two more days to continue his defense by calling more witnesses at the election tribunal.

Obaseki apparently is dissatisfied after days of calling witnesses whose oral testimonies contradicted their written depositions.

During Today’s sitting, after presenting three witnesses, his counsel said; “We don’t want to be working and calling witnesses without focus. We need to put our house in order.”

“My lord it’s important for us to appraise ourselves and in order to know where we are going.

“In the light of the above, we want to move for an adjournment to Monday, the 6th of March, 2017. We are willing to forfeit two and half days of the 10 days given to us by the Tribunal.”

The counsels to the petitioners, INEC and the APC who are the first and third respondents not objecting, gave room for the tribunal chairman, Justice Ahmad Badamasi to adjourn further sitting till Monday, 6th of March, even as he admonished the APC, to endeavour to open its defense next day, Tuesday 7.

However, most of the witnesses called by Obaseki in his defense at the tribunal have in the last eight days testified that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC failed to train them with either its elections manual or the voters’ register prior the 2016 Edo governorship elections, while INEC on the other hand has admitted that there were irregularities in the election, but transferred the blame to NYSC adhoc staffs.

Majority of petitioner’s witnesses have testified to the many incidents of non-accreditation of voters and over voting occasioned by the disparity in the number of used and unused ballot papers during the September  28 2016 governorship elections in Edo state.

The witnesses gave their testimonies at the Electoral Tribunal of the petition by Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu and the PDP challenging the INEC results of the September 28 2016 Edo state governorship election.

In all, the eight witnesses appeared for the petitioner were from Egor and Orhionwon local government areas and had among them Ward collation agents like constitutional lawyer and Law Professor at the University of Benin, Edoba Omoregie.

Omoregie who told the tribunal that he could not say if he was accredited to vote in the election unless he sees the INEC voters register‎ said his complaints as contained in his deposition were inappropriate accreditation and over-voting.

On how he came to the conclusion as regards overvoting he said, the number of used and unused ballot papers in unit 010‎, he noticed did not tall)n argiung that whereas 335 were accredited as voters the result sheet showed that 340 voted.

‎He told the tribunal that, “My unit is clustered with other units, so this afforded me the opportunity to move around and as a ward collation officer also other PU agents submitted their various results to me”Hon Tony Osazuwa who was collation agent of the PDP for Evbueghae Ward in Orhionwon local government area, admitted that he did not vote in the elections though he is a registered voter in Unit 4

He told the tribunal that there were no elections in 4 out of the 21 polling units and blamed this on the malpractices that characterized the process in the listed polling units in the Ward.

Asked how he came to the conclusions he said based on complaints he received from the polling agents scattered all over the Ward, he undertook the task of going round  and confirmed their assertions to be true.

Other witnesses like Messrs Osamede Edebiri in his deposition before the tribunal said, ” I observed that there was total absence of accreditation”, in the 28 polling units in his Ward in Egor local government of the state.

Victor Agbonze, Ogbebor Clement, Jonathan Alohan, Edosonmwan Samuel and Omoregbe Esosa who also testified before the tribunal at the sitting were all agreed that either voting took place without accreditation in many polling units or that result sheets were mutilated.