BARRING any last-minute changes, the Rivers State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja will start hearing evidence from witnesses today.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, are challenging the declaration of Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) Nyesom Wike as the governor.
Peterside and his party want the tribunal to call for a re-run on the basis that there was no proper election in the state.
Wike and PDP insist the election was free, fair and credible and should stand.
About 1,100 witnesses are expected to be called.
The APC and Peterside will call 200 witnesses and tender material evidence to prove its case. INEC intends to call 400 witnesses; although Wike was reluctant to attach a number to his intended witnesses, the tribunal has ordered him to call only 300 witnesses within the 10 days allotted to him to conduct his case. The PDP intends to call 200 witnesses also.
The tribunal has also specified the time each witness will spend. A star witness has been allotted 85 minutes – examination-in-chief, 30 minutes; cross-examination, 40 minutes and re-examination, 15 minutes. Ordinary witness is expected to spend on 20 minutes – examination-in-chief, 5 minutes; cross-examination, 10 minutes and re-examination, 5 minutes.
The tribunal has said it will sit at 10am every day, including weekends, if necessary.
The legal teams of the two parties are optimistic of carrying the day. While exiting the tribunal’s sitting venue on August 28, lawyers representing the disputants, on being told that the tribunal intends to commence trial today, expressed their readiness for the next phase in the tribunal’s proceedings.
Akinlolu Olujinmi (SAN) leads the petitioners’ legal team, while Emmanuel Ukala (SAN) leads Wike’s legal team. Wole Olanipekun (SAN), who leads the team of the petitioners – APC and its candidate, Umana Umana – at the Akwa Ibom State governorship tribunal, is leading PDP’s team at the Rivers State governorship tribunal, with Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN) as head of the INEC team.
As the tribunal opens trial in the petition, a lot of issues will be revealed, which will determine the eventual decision of the tribunal at the end of the day, the major being the quality of evidence led by parties.
Although the petitioners have, so far, survived all land mines thrown their way by the defendants, they have also had rulings given against them on some vital applications.
On many occasions, the tribunal headed by Justice Mu’azu Pindiga, refused moves by the respondents to truncate the hearing of the petition.
First, they challenged the relocation of the tribunal to Abuja from Port Harcourt for security reasons and demanded its return to the Rivers State Capital. They had insisted that it was wrong, by virtue of the 2005 decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Ogboru against INEC, it was wrong for a tribunal to sit outside a state where election was held to decide a dispute from such election.
The tribunal resolved the issue against them by holding that the tribunal’s relocation to Abuja on security ground was in order.
Second, the respondents challenged the constitution of the tribunal and its jurisdiction to hear the petition. Their argument was to the effect that the tribunal, having wrongly constituted, lacked the powers to hear the petition by APC and Peterside.
At a point too, the respondents also challenged Peterside’s locus standi (right to sue), arguing that he was not validly elected a candidate of his party. It was their contention that the APC did not serve INEC the mandatory notice of its primary 21 days before the primary was held.
The tribunal resolved this set of issues raised by the respondents against them, following which the petitioners applied for the issuance of prehearing session notices on parties.
Again, the respondents raised objection, faulting the petitioners’ application for prehearing session notices. The respondents argued that the petitioners failed to pay the requisite fee for its application.
The petitioners, in a counter-argument, insisted that no fee was required for such application, a position the tribunal upheld and dismissed the respondents’ objection.
It has not all been victory for the petitioners as the tribunal had, on some occasions, refused the requests by the APC and Peterside. The tribunal turned down the petitioners’ request to direct INEC to move materials used for the election to Abuja to allow ease of inspection.
The petitioners had complained that the respondent had consistently frustrated their (petitioners’) effort to inspect the materials and obtained certified-true-copies (CTC) in line with the leave granted them on June 11, 2015 by the tribunal. There were allegations to the effect that INEC officials, working with thugs’ influenced by the PDP and Wike, had on some occasions, attacked petitioners’ officials and experts, who were at INEC’s office to inspect election materials.
The last request by the petitioners was for an order compelling INEC to allow them scan, photocopy the election materials.
The tribunal, in a ruling on August 28, held that granting the petitioners’ request will amount to it varying its subsisting order for inspection made on June 11.
Now that parties have been able to streamline issues at the pre-hearing session, the picture of what the trial process will look like is now fairly clear.
The petitioners have formulated three issues for the tribunal’s determination in deciding their petition. They are as follows:
*Whether, from the pleadings and evidence led in the petition, the governorship election held on April 11 this year ought to be invalidated and a fresh election ordered, for reasons of various acts of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2010, the INEC manual for election officials 2015 as well as INEC guidelines and regulations for the conduct of the election.
*Whether, from the pleadings and evidence led by the petitioners, the governorship election for Rivers State held on April 11 this year ought not to be invalidated by the tribunal and a fresh election ordered for reasons of various acts of corrupt practices that marred the conduct of the election.
*Whether, on account of the first two issues, the petitioners have established that the 2nd respondent (Wike) did not score the majority of lawful votes cast in the election to be declared winner by the 1st respondent (INEC).
INEC, on its part, raised three issues also. They are: Whether the petitioners have established that the 2nd respondent was not duly elected by majority of the lawful votes cast at the election; whether the petitioners have established that the election was invalidated by issues of non-compliance with the Electoral Act, which substantially affected the result of the election, and whether the petitioners have established that the election was invalid by issues of corrupt practices.
