C’River Governorship Tribunal reserves judgment
From Aniekan Aniekan, Calabar
The Cross River State Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal has reserved judgment in a suit seeking to oust the Governor of Cross River State, Bassey Otu.
The suit which is marked as No: EPT/CR/GOV/02/2023 was jointly instituted by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship flag-bearer, Professor Sandy Onor and his party , against the election of Senator Bassey Otu of All Progressives Congress (APC).
Addressing the court, counsel to the petitioners, Dr. J. Y. Musa, SAN, told the court that evidences extracted under cross examination of the respondents goes to fortify the case of their petition and also confirm the falsity of the evidence presented by the second and third respondents (Governor Otu and Peter Odey).
He said the case of the petitioners is not allegations of forgery against any of the respondents and so all the authorities they cited to the effect that they needed to call witnesses from institutions are non-sequitor, rather their case is that the second and third respondents lied on oath.
He insisted that the second and third respondents brought documents to show that they forged documents.
In the process of trying to say they did not lie on oath, they opened a pandora box where we saw the discrepancies.
He urged the tribunal to declare the votes of the second and third respondents wasted because they were not qualified to stand for the election and declare the petitioners winner of the elections.
On his part, the lead counsel to the second and third respondents Prof. Mike Ozekhone, SAN, urged the court to dismiss the petition for being frivolous, un-meritorious, gold digging, distracting and for constituting an abuse of the court process.
He added that withdrawal of grounds two and three by the petitioners sounded a death kernel to their own petition because it was an admission that the elections were validly held.
On his part, counsel to the first respondents (INEC) K. O. Balogun urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition and also adopted Professor Ozekhome’s submission in respect of the qualification of the second and third respondent.
After listening to the final arguments of the parties, Justice Oken Inneh thanked the litigants for the efforts they put in the case.
She said the date of judgment will be communicated to all the parties subsequently.
