The Edo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has explained why it rejected last Friday’s ruling of the Election Petitions Tribunal, which affirmed the election of Governor Godwin Obaseki.
In a unanimous decision, tribunal Chairman, Justice Ahmed Badamasi, threw out the petition of the PDP and its governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, for failing to support their pleadings with evidence as well as abandoning some pleadings in their petition.
But Edo State PDP Chairman Dan Orbih said the party rejected the judgment because the tribunal threw away the results from the inconclusive ballot recount.
The PDP chairman said the tribunal expected the party and its candidate to call over 2,000 witnesses within the 14 days allotted to prove its case.
He added that the tribunal, through its pronouncement, said different unit presiding officers, could adopt different standards in the conduct of same election.
According to him, the tribunal said there was no need for uniformity in the conduct of elections.
Orbih said: “The conduct of an election is not a fre-for-all where anyone is at liberty to apply his own discretion. What Justice Badamasi was simply saying that whether the presiding officers followed the regulations or not did not matter.
“For the first time ever, a judge redefined over-voting as a situation whereby the total number of votes cast exceeds the total number of registered voters. Is that not laughable? I think these are the salient issues that we will challenge.”
The PDP chairman challenged former Governor Adams Oshiomhole to explain what he meant when he referred to the tribunal’s verdict as “Mama Akara judgment”.
He said Oshiomhole’s comment suggested that he may have inadvertently exposed how APC “purchased” the verdict.
Orbih said: “I watched former Governor Oshiomhole on national television describing Friday’s judgment as Mama Akara judgment. This is about the first time Oshiomhole was describing things the way they are in his political life.
“We know what goes into the making of akara and we also know that the Mama Akara will not part with her akara for nothing. So, we are demanding from Oshiomhole to tell Edo people and other Nigerians what was handed the Mama Akara before she let go of her akara.”