The Enugu State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal will give their verdict on the rightful winner of the March 18 election.
The Tribunal chaired by Justice Kudirat Murayo Akano will be delivering judgements on the petitions by Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party and Chris Agu of the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP against the return of Dr. Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, as the winner of the election.
Journalist101 correspondent who’s in court reports that the lawyers for the petitioners and respondents have started arriving the court.
The panel have entered the courtroom at about 9:07AM. The first case to be heard is that of the The first case is that of Chris Agu of thePeoples Redemption Party against Peter Mbah of the PDP and INEC
Stay with Journalist101 for updates or follow the link below on twitter:
LIVE UPDATES FROM ENUGU GOVERNORSHIP ELECTION TRIBUNAL
The Enugu State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal will give their verdict on the rightful winner of the March 18 election.@EnuguVoices @ejykmykel1 @MaziGomez_ @EnuguL16929 @AfiaTvOfficial @Coal__City @The042Network pic.twitter.com/cHuOnOO7hV
— Journalist101 (@realJ101) September 21, 2023
Below is the prayers of the PRP candidate
1. Mbah wasn’t qualified as the time of the election.
2. All then votes cast for Mbah are wasted due to non qualification.
3. Declare him winner of the election having the highest number of the lawful votes or that a Rerun be conducted excluding Mbah. And the declaration of Mbah is unconstitutional.
The petition is anchored on the following grounds.
Non compliance to electoral act in declaration of Mbah as the winner of the election
Corruption and irregular practices during the election.
Non qualification of Mbah to stand for the election.
They said that Mbah entered into Plea Bargain and this disqualified him from the contest.
Alleged non qualification as a result of submission of forged NYSC Certificate.
The inability of the INEC to use BVAS in Nkanu East and also failure to upload the results to IReV.
Mbah urged the tribunal to strike out the petition because one of the issues canvassed is status barred while the issue of the NYSC Certificate has been decided by an Abuja Federal High Court.
That the issue of qualification is a pre-election matter and the tribunal Lacks the jurisdiction to address it.
Mbah also told the court that the claim of corruption is nebulous, vague and should be discarded.
The tribunal said that the Petitioner failed to prove of the respondent posses the minimum requirement to stand for election which is school start or its equivalent and therefore, said there’s no evidence to support the claim that Mbah Isn’t qualified to stand for the election.
On the issue of Plea Bargain by Mbah, the tribunal averred that the exhibits presented by the petitioners didn’t show any Plea bargain by the respondent.
The court said the evidence presented by Mbah to the effect that he was acquitted of the charges.
Ruling on the issue of forging of NYSC Certificate by Dr. Mbah, the tribunal said the petitioner failed to provide evidence to support their claim that a forged certificate was submitted to the NYSC and the issue isn’t contained in their affidavit.
The tribunal also held that to prove the issue of forgery, the petitioner must provide the original certificate and the forged one.
10:25AM:
The panel also resolved the issue that Mbah wasn’t elected by majority of votes cast against the petitioner.
The panel averred that that witnesses called by the petitioners couldn’t specify the polling units where the elections didn’t hold nor the results of same mentioned by the witnesses.
The panel has dismissed the petition by the PRP for failing to substantiate their claims against the declaration of Peter Mbah as the winner of the March 18 election.
We await that of Labour Party to commence shortly aster the lawyers to all the parties finish their address.
Labour Party Edeoga’s Case is up
They’re praying for the disqualification of Mbah on the grounds that he wasn’t qualified to contest for the election.
That there was over-voting in Nkanu East and there votes not properly counted in Udenu and Igboeze North.
Asking the tribunal to declare him winner of the election.
On the forgery of NYSC Certificate, the tribunal dismissed all the evidence by both the DSS, NYSC official because they weren’t in compliance with paragraph 4, subsection 5D of the evidence act. Only the witness of pw26 was admitted.
NYSC isn’t a requirement for contesting for the office of the Governor and there’s no where that the NYSC Certificate was attached to the documents Mbah submitted and wasn’t deposed to in affidavit.
It must be proven that the forgery was done to circumvent the provisions of the constitution on the qualification of the respondent.
The panel held that Mbah was still qualified to stand for the election without the NYSC Certificate. The witness of the pw26 is a hearsay and those not help the petitioners and therefore resolved the issue of Certificate Forgery in favour of Mbah.
On the issue of wrong computation of results of the Labour Party in Udenu local government, the panel said they petitioners failed to prove this case and the witnesses they called gave the same report for different polling units and wards and wondered why their testimonies are they same even from different locations.
The panel also said that the witnesses presented by the Labour Party weren’t duly accredited agents by INEC and makes their testimony invalid.
The panel based on the witnesses from the right agents in 3 polling units, deducted 51 votes from PDP and added same to Labour Party.
The tribunal held that the deduction isn’t enough to Overturn the election of Mbah
Amagu polling unit in Nkanu East has been cancelled for all parties because the witness pw10 proved he was there and the margin
In the remaining 11 polling units, the tribunal held that the witnesses didn’t sign the result sheet and their witnesses is discountenanced because they can’t prove they were party agents
After the deductions of the votes
The panel thereafter, said that the Petitioners have failed to prove their case as their petition Lacks merit and therefore dismissed
Stay with us for updates…
