Alex Enumah in Abuja
The All Progressives Congress (APC) will next week close its case challenging the declaration of Governor Duoye Diri as winner of the November 11 governorship election in Bayelsa State.
At Thursday’s proceedings, the party alongside its gubernatorial candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva, called additional witnesses to prove their claims that Diri did not win majority of votes cast at the election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Diri and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winner of the November 11, 2023 governorship election in Bayelsa State, having won majority of the votes cast at the election.
According to the Returning Officer, Prof. Faruq Kuta, the PDP and Diri polled 175,196 votes to defeat his closest rival, Timiprey Sylva of the APC, who scored 110,108 votes.
Dissatisfied, Sylva and APC had approached the tribunal to challenge the declaration of Diri as winner of the November 11 governorship election.
At the hearing on February 14, the petitioners had hinted that they will be calling at least 224 witnesses to prove their allegations against Diri’s re-election.
However, the petitioners on Thursday, after calling four witnesses, sought for an adjournment to enable them call more witnesses to prove their case.
Since the request for adjournment was not opposed by the respondents, the Chairman of the three-member panel of the Bayelsa Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, Justice Adekunle Adeleye, announced Monday and Tuesday next week for continuation of trial.
Meanwhile, the petitioners are expected to close their case next week, after which the defendants, which include INEC, Governor Diri, Deputy Governor, Lawrence Ewhrujakpo, and PDP will then open their defence.
The petitioners are asking the tribunal to hold that contrary to the position of the electoral umpire, election held in some polling units and winners were declared at the said units, adding that it was wrong of INEC to disregard the results at the ward and local government level.
It is their claim that if the said cancelled results were restored by the court, they would emerge winner of the November election.
But the respondents especially, INEC which conducted the election, submitted that election in three local governments of Southern Ijaw, Ogbia and Nembe did not hold due to incidents of alleged diversions of materials and disruption of the electoral process over alleged bypass of the BVAS machine.
They had tendered the Form EC40G to confirm that there were no elections in the said polling units.
In addition the respondents brought Certified True Copies (CTCs) of results from INEC to prove that the results brought before the court as evidence that election held at the polling units were forged by the petitioners.
