Election: Mutfwang, others in court as tribunal commences hearing in Plateau

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Election: Mutfwang, others in court as tribunal commences hearing in Plateau

The governorship election tribunal sitting in Jos has commenced hearing in the case between the All Progressives Congress, and APC against the People’s Democratic Party, PDP.

The State Governor, Caleb Mutfwang and his Deputy, Josephine Piyo as well as the running mate of the APC candidate, Pam Botmang attended the sitting.

At the sitting, the Petitioner’s counsel, Kayode Olatoke SAN set the tone for the hearing when he drew the attention of the tribunal to the subpoena to INEC to bring some documents and sought to know if there was compliance.

The documents expected to be submitted were BVAS machines, certified true copies of the Voters register in respect of some Local government areas, permanent voter cards collected for the 18th March 2023 governorship election in the state and certified true copies of the Form EC8A.

Counsel to Governor Mutfwang, Pius Akubo SAN sought to know from Olatoke SAN on which schedule were the documents listed in the scheduled order of the pre-hearing report of the tribunal as there were no such things on the listed files and it is required that the petitioner states categorically where the documents are stated in the schedule order before calling on INEC officials to present them before the tribunal.

Counsel to PDP, Emeka Etiaba SAN submitted a similar argument with Akubo SAN noting that the tack applied by the petitioner’s counsel was unacceptable. The arguments made the tribunal stand down for about 10 mins to study what the law says in respect of the situation.

On resumption, the tribunal in part agreed with Akubo and Etiaba but ruled that the documents be submitted.

However, the Counsel to INEC also associated herself with the submissions of the second and third respondents’ counsels and submitted that the documents so mentioned came to them as a surprise having been not mentioned in the schedule order.

Olatoke noted that the respondents’ counsels’ arguments are all aimed at delaying the tribunal’s proceedings and urged that their submissions be discountenanced.

A Senior System Analyst with the INEC Headquarters Abuja, Salisu Aliyu who disclosed that he was directed to bring to the tribunal certified true copies of accreditation data extracted from the INEC Result Viewing Portal and the BVA machines used in the state during the March 18th governorship election and further disclosed that it was not possible to bring to the tribunal all the BVAS machines as they are over 4,000.

Also, an Assistant Director in the Voter registry department of the INEC Headquarters, Festus Aisin revealed that he brought the voter register used for the governorship election in selected polling units in the state and added that in view of the bulky nature of the documents, he brought them in soft copy and only two of the polling units register, are in hard copy.

Olatoke, SAN stated that the petitioner did not ask for the E-Copy of documents and as such there was non-compliance with the subpoena and applied that INEC be compelled to produce the certified true copies of the subpoenaed documents in their custody.

After listening to arguments and counterarguments, the tribunal agreed with the petitioner’s counsel’s application and ordered that INEC should produce the rest of the documents within one week.

The petitioner’s counsel also called the State Commissioner of Police to present the election results from the state and the Police represented by the Command’s legal officer, Okon Umoren, presented the election results from some local government areas and asked for time to bring others.

The tribunal admitted some of the documents and marked them as exhibits and adjourned to Tuesday 27th of June, at 3 pm.