Adibe Emenyonu in Benin City
After a three-day adjourment granted to parties, the Edo State Election Petitions Tribunal resummed yesterday as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, tendered documentary evidence before the tribunal.
Ize-Iyamu and the PDP have challenged the victory of Mr. Godwin Obaseki of the All Progressives Congress (APC) at the September 28, 2016 governorship elections in the state.
The three-man justices led by Justice Ahmed Badamasi had Wednesday last week granted an adjournment to enable counsel in the matter sort out non-contentious documentary evidence in conjunction with the tribunal registrar.
At resumption of hearing of the petition monday, Counsel to the petitioner, Mallam Yusuf Alli (SAN), who led 41 other Lawyers, disclosed that the parties had verified Forms EC8A (result sheets) for the 18 local government areas in the state, in addition to Voter Registers for two local government areas.
He requested the tribunal to grant two more days to enable the parties verify the Voter Registers for the remaining 16 local government areas and adjourn the matter till Thursday this week.
Counsel to the respondents aligned themselves with the request for adjournment but counsel to Governor Obaseki and APC, Adetunji Oyeyipo (SAN) and Niyi Akintola (SAN) respectively, prayed that the petitioners would complete the tendering of their documents on Thursday and commence calling their witnesses on Friday.
With this, the tribunal granted Tuesday and Wednesday to the parties to enable them complete the sorting of the remaining documents.
Consequently, counsel to the petitioners, Mallam Alli, opened his case by seeking to tender 2,531 Forms EC8A for all the local governments.
At the time of filing this report, the petitioners’ counsel had tendered Form EC8A for Akoko-Edo, Egor, Etsako Central, Igueben, Etsako East and Etsako West, with more documents scheduled for tendering after the tribunal resumed from recess at 3 p.m.
