The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal handling petitions of the last Edo State governorship election is currently reviewing evidence in the petition filed by Asue Ighodalo, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Asue Ighodalo had challenged the result of the September 21, 2024 governorship election in Edo state where the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Senator Monday Okpebholo winner.
However, Justice Wilfred Kpochi-led three-member tribunal reserved the judgement after counsels in the matter adopted and argued their final written addresses.
Justice Kpochi stated that, the tribunal secretary will communicate a date for judgement to the parties.
At the resumed hearing of the matter, counsel to the petitioners, Mr Adetunji Oyeyipo, SAN, told the tribunal that the business of the day was to adopt final written addresses.
ENigeria News reports that Counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr. Kanu Agabi, SAN, then adopted his client’s final address.
Agabi, by adumbration, prayed the tribunal to dismiss the petition for lacking merit.
He said this was based on the grounds that the tribunal could not annul the governorship election on Sept. 21, 2024, because it was not one of the reliefs sought by the petitioners.
The senior lawyer also told the tribunal that it could not declare the petitioners as winners of that election in the light of their own assertion that the election was invalid.
Speaking on the petitioners’ claim of non-compliance, Agabi said it was weak as it was not accompanied by the appropriate relief, which was the nullification of the election.
He also said that the petitioner’s claim of a majority of lawful votes could not be accepted since their other claim was that the election was invalid.
He also argued that the number of polling unit agents called as witnesses represented an insignificant or even negligible percentage of the number of polling units in Edo.
Another ground on which INEC prayed the tribunal to dismiss the petition was that all the polling unit agents called as witnesses signed the result sheet and could not distinguish between what they heard and what they saw.
“This clearly indicates that the election was conducted in compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022.
“The results were duly collated at all levels of collation.
“The petitioners have not pleaded any alternative results on the basis of which they can be declared as winners.
“The case of the petitioners is based on analysis undertaken by hired consultants,” he said.
He further held that the documents upon which the petitioners relied were all dumped on the tribunal and could not be used in their favour.
He, therefore, prayed the tribunal to dismiss the petition in its entirety as it had no merit.
For his part, Gov. Monday Okpebholo’s counsel, Mr Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, told the tribunal to dismiss the petition on the grounds that it had become an academic exercise.
He said that in the course of their research, they carefully extracted the polling units on which the petitioners tendered documents and compared them to the ones they presented. Even at that, his client was well ahead of the petitioners in the polls.
On the Contentious Form EC25b, where the petitioners claimed the serial numbers of sensitive materials must be given, Ikpeazu said that the form only required the number of electoral materials received and returned.
He added that a Supreme Court pronouncement said that one could not prove over-voting without the Bimodal Verification Authentication System (BVA) Machines, but none of the machines were opened to allow the tribunal to examine the content.
