Kogi State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja on Monday, reserved judgment in the petition filed by the Social Democratic Party (SDP) and its governorship candidate in the November 11, 2024 governorship election in Kogi state, Alhaji Murtala Ajaka, against the election of Governor Usman Ododo.
This is even as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Ododo and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), prayed the three-member panel of justices, headed by Justice Ado Birnin-Kudu, to dismiss the petition in its entirety for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
The trio, through their lawyers, Chief Kanu Agabi, Joseph Daudu, and Emmanuel Ukala, all Senior Advocates of Nigeria (SAN), told the tribunal while adopting their final written addresses and presenting their arguments against SDP and Ajaka’s petition.
However, Ajaka’s lawyer, Pius Akubo (SAN), urged the tribunal to discount the respondents’ submissions and uphold the petition challenging Ododo’s election.
The tribunal after listening to all the parties in the petition, reserved judgment to a date that would be communicated to parties in the matter.
Ajaka and his party had, in their joint petition, listed INEC, Ododo and APC as 1st to 3rd respondents respectively.
The tribunal had, on April 25, fixed today for the adoption of final written addresses after the parties closed their case in the matter.
Upon resumed hearing, INEC’s counsel, Chief Agabi, told the court that their final written address was dated and filed on May 2 and that INEC’s reply on point of law was filed on May 9.
While adopting the processes, the senior lawyer submitted that the petition lacked merit and was incompetent and urged the Tribunal to strike it out or dismiss it.
“It is our humble submission that your work in the determination of this petition is simplified in recent judgments by Court of Appeal and Supreme Court,” he said and argued further that the Court of Appeal had decided that if the grounds of a petition are inconsistent with one another and are not consistent with the reliefs, it should be struck out.
He also argued that the evidence of the petitioners was grossly insufficient, citing a Supreme Court decision in a case by Tonye Cole against INEC.
“In that case, the petitioner filed 305 witness depositions but only adopted 40 of them. The petitioner, according to the decision, only adopted about 13.1 per cent of the witness depositions.
“In this case, the depositions adopted represent just about 3.6 per cent of their witness depositions,” he said and added that the petitioners only called 25 witnesses out of the scores listed.
Agabi said in mathematical calculation of evidence, 3.6 per cent of Ajaka’s witness deposition adopted in the petition amounted to a failure and therefore, ought to be dismissed and described the petition as frivolous.
He said the petitioners equally failed to file the witness deposition beforehand in contravention of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obungado’s case.
Agabi further argued that the petitioners’ witness who testified about the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines clearly stated that he could not guarantee whether those were the BVAS used. Besides, he said the witness was not the maker of the inputs in the BVAS machines.
“Also, the evidence contained in the BVAS machines fell short of what is required of the law,” he added and further argued that the BVAS machine was tendered against Section 84 of the Evidence Act, as there was no certificate of trustworthiness attached alongside it as required by the law.
He argued that out of the 25 witnesses called by the petitioners, there was no single polling unit agent among them.
“In other words, not a single person who observed the election was called. Besides, the star witness could not distinguish between what he heard and what he saw when questions were put to him,” he said and prayed the tribunal to strike out or dismiss the petition for being incompetent.
While adopting his final written address filed on May 1, Daudu, who appeared for Gov. Ododo, urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition in its entirety for being statute-barred (filed out of time).
The senior lawyer said though the petitioners responded to their submission that “when it comes to filing, it is what the secretary of the tribunal says that determines the date of filing,” he, however, argued that the action of the petitioners was against Section 122(1) and (2)(a) of the Evidence Act, which empowers the tribunal to take judicial notice of.
He also urged the tribunal to dismiss the allegations of forgery against his client, saying it bordered on a pre-election matter, which the apex court had decided in Gbagi’s case against INEC.
Daudu also argued that Section 137 of the Electoral Act cited by the petitioners on allegations of over-voting did not apply in the instant petition.
Also backing Daudu’s submission, Ukala, who represented APC, urged the court to dismiss the petition for lacking in merit.
The lawyer, who said their final written address, dated April 30 was filed same date, adopted all the processes.
The petitioners’ lawyer, Akubo, in his final written address filed May 6, disagreed with Daudu that their petition was filed out of time.
He argued that the respondents themselves confirmed that the petition was filed on December 2, 2023, even by their own witness, and urged the Tribunal to “hold that we filed this petition within time under our law“.
After taking the arguments, Justice Birnin-Kudu reserved judgment in the petition which he said would be communicated to parties.
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