The Chairman of Osun Election Petition Tribunal, Justice Tertsea Kume, yesterday granted Governor-elect Ademola Adeleke, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) the permission to cross-check the list of documents to be tendered, with a view to making the tendering seamless for the petitioners.
The petitioners, Governor Adegboyega Oyetola and All Progressives Congress (APC), through their counsel, will tender a dossier of documentary evidence against the declaration of Adeleke as winner of July 16 governorship election by INEC.
Counsel for Oyetola and APC, Chief Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), informed the court of his intention to tender documentary evidence to prove the alleged non-compliance with the Electoral Act by INEC.
However, counsel for the PDP, Alex Izinyon (SAN), objected to the tendering of the documents on the grounds that it fell foul of Paragraph 3 of the pre-hearing report, which indicated that the list of witnesses should be filed 24 hours to the hearing.
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He argued that the petitioners disobeyed the tribunal order, hence, the petition should be dismissed as the consequences of the action.
Counsel for INEC, Prof. Paul Ananaba (SAN), also argued along the same line and said the attempt to tender the documents violated the tribunal order and the petition should be dismissed.
Counsel for Adeleke, Onyeachi Ikpeazu (SAN), however, toed a different line and argued that since the petitioners were ready to tender the documents, they ought to have allowed the respondents to have access to it earlier and cross check, so that the tendering would be seamless.
The petitioners’ counsel, Fagbemi, while responding, argued that the paragraph 3 of the pre-hearing report being relied on by the PDP counsel was not in any way referring to documentary evidence, but calling of witnesses.
The tribunal adjourned till today for the continuation of hearing.