by By Ndifon Joseph
The Cross River State Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Calabar has reserved ruling in the petition filed by Governorship Candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Prof. Sandy Ojang Onor challenging the eligibility of Senator Bassey Otu & Hon. Peter Odey of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 2023 Governorship Elections in the state.
The tribunal having adopted parties’ final written addresses, reserved judgement to a date to be communicated to the parties in the case.
Chairman of the panel, Justice Oken Inneh who on the last adjourned date directed parties to prepare final briefs of argument and appear for adoption said the tribunal would later communicate the parties on a date for judgement.
Addressing newsmen at the end of proceedings, Counsel to Sen. Onor & the PDP, Dr J. Y. Musa (SAN), said: “All the parties presented their final written addresses to be given the opportunity to adumbrate. In adumbrating, we drew the courts attention to the fact that the case is essentially on the fact that the 2nd & 3rd respondents lied on oath.
“In the beginning we didn’t allege any forgery, but there were the ones who brought certificates showing that they could be forgery. There were the ones who tendered the documents. They opened the pandora box by themselves. So we adopted and it’s in our written address.”
Asked on his clients prayers to the court, Dr Musa responded, “Of course to declare their votes ‘wasted votes’ and to declare our clients the winner. That’s it, because if the court nullifies their candidature upon the argument on qualification and declares their votes, wasted votes, they will be under obligation to declare us the winner because we have the geographical spread to be so declared.”
When asked to commend on the controversy surrounding the INEC Form EC9, the Learned Silk concluded, “That’s the affidavit of personal particulars. The governor did not provide any qualification in his affidavit of personal particulars and the documents he attached to that affidavit were not verified by the affidavit. They were in conflict with the affidavit. And then, in their bid to try and see how they could answer us on that, they now brought out certificates that now, were in contradistinction with what was attached in Form EC9. That’s why we said he lied on oath.”
On his part, counsel to the 2nd & 3rd respondents, Prof. Mike Ozekhome (SAN), said: “From my submission today, the truth is that from the 10th of July, 2023, when they withdrew grounds 2 & 3 of the petition, which talked about discrepancies, non-accreditation, non-trasnmission through BIVAS, through iRev and all other alleged malpractices, which were funny, phony and untrue allegations, their petitions collapsed like a pack of cards. They personally sank the metis, they wrote the elegy of their own petition.
“The truth is that they never had any case at all. We have been wasting our time. Their case is predicted on the allegation that the 2nd respondent, the governor was not educated up to school certificate level. That is their case, it’s here and it’s the ground of the petition. But, they abandoned that and started talking about forgery, about discrepancies in the certificates by saying that the documents attached to Form EC9 of INEC said the Primary School certificate was 1966, secondary 1972, and University Degree (B.sc Hons Sociology) was 1980.
“But, from the very witness, their own witness (DW-1) we were able to extract under cross-examination that those mentioned were the dates of entry into the various schools, but that the certificates before the tribunal which we tendered, the very originals including the ones they themselves attached to Form EC9 show that where the governor mentioned 1966 which was the year of entry, the certificate showed 1972 which was the year of graduation from primary school. That, where they mentioned 1972 for the secondary school, the certificate shows that he graduated in 1977 and where the form was filled for B.sc in 1980, witness made it clear that the certificates shows 1984. So, where is the discrepancy,” he questioned.
The adoption of the final written addresses is the precursor to fixing a date for the judgement.
