News - Ondo governorship polls tribunal begins hearing

[TGD]

 Admits documents in exhibit

THE Ondo State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal Tuesday commenced hearing on the suit filed by the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) against the declaration of incumbent Governor Olusegun Mimiko of the Labour Party (LP) as winner.

Also, the tribunal admitted as exhibits a load of documents tendered by the plaintiff. Following the granting of its application, which preceded the court-ordered inspection of election materials, the documents the ACN tendered included several Certified True Copies (CTC) of papers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and copies of voters' register used for the October 20, 2012 polls.

Counsel to the ACN, Chief Akin Olujimi, who moved the application to bring in the report of the inspection of INEC materials, said since the court had allowed the petitioner to carry out the inspection of the materials, it was under obligation to allow the report to be part of the documents to be relied upon for the execution of the petition.

However, Mimiko's counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), asked the tribunal to dismiss the application as it did not show by way of affidavit extreme circumstances that could make the tribunal grant the application. According to Olanipekun, as one of the people listed in the deposition, Adesina Fatai was not one of those listed to give additional evidence.

What the ACN wanted to tender as additional evidence were documents that were in the possession of the petitioner before the tribunal granted the order for inspection of the INEC materials used for the election. Arguing in the same vein, LP's counsel, Yusuf Ali (SAN), urged the court to dismiss the application as it was bereft of any substance.

He submitted that it was the proper time for the court to scrutinise the written deposition of the proposed witnesses to enable the tribunal know whether they were within its order. He also argued that such action would enable the tribunal to determine if those proposed as additional witnesses actually participated in the inspection at INEC.

He urged the tribunal to dismiss the application because the affidavit in support of it lied against itself.

In his reply to the arguments, Olujimi said since the application was filed within the pre-trial period, all authorities cited by the respondents were irrelevant.

He argued that the order of the court did not ask those that participated in the inspection to sign an attendance register, adding that the order did not also ask the people to analyse INEC's documents at the state headquarters of the commission.

The tribunal, however, granted the application but ruled that the respondents would be allowed to come up with their objection to the document during the trial.



The Guardian