OSUN TRIBUNAL UPDATE: 14/11/2014 AREGBESOLA’S LAWYERS ALLEGE OWOLADE OF SEEKING TO TENDER OMISORE’S DOCUMENTS Hearing into the petition filed by candidate of Accord Party (AP) in the August 9, Osun Governorship poll, Mr. Niyi Owolade ran into a hitch shortly after it began on Friday as Governor Rauf Aregbesola’s lawyers discovered that the petitioner wanted to tender documents belonging to Senator Iyiola Omisore of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). Mr. Kunle Adegoke, leading counsel to Governor Aregbesola had called the attention of the Justice Elizabeth Ikpejime-led Governorship Election Petition Tribunal to the fact that Owolade’s schedule of documents to be tendered was materially the same as those already tendered by Omisore in another petition already being heard. The schedule of documents which Owolade had sought to tender merely covered the 17 Local Governments being challenged by Omisore before the Tribunal when in fact, Owolade’s petition alleged irregularities in all the state’s 30 Local Governments. Owolade,who was personally in court and was the immediate past Attorney-General and Commissioner for Justice of the state had opened his petition by seeking to tender the results of election in Ayedaade Local Government. Petitioner’s counsel, Mr. Goddy Uche, had told the Tribunal that he wanted to start by tendering certified true copies of Form EC8A, the result of election at the polling unit level, for Ayedaade Local Government. Uche notified the panel that to make his job easy, the petitioner had made four copies of the Schedule of Documents to be tendered available to the Tribunal while each of the respondents had also been served. He added that there was a problem with the schedule as some of the documents that ought to be part of it were not available. The counsel however pleaded for the indulgence of the Tribunal to allow him discard the schedule by going ahead to tender those documents which were available and make up for the ones on Saturday. At this stage, Mr. Kunle Adegoke stood up to tell the Tribunal that in order to avoid mutilation of the court’s record, Uche should go ahead to tender those documents that were completed while those that were yet to be completed should be deferred till when they were completed. Sensing that the order of tendering might become confusing, counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), the second respondent in the petition, Mr. Ayodele Sobayo sought the protective order of the court to relax the time needed for the verification of the documents since the order of their tendering would not follow the schedule submitted by Owolade. At this stage, Justice Ikpejime, the Chairman of the Tribunal asked Uche why he was not going to start from the Local Government where Omisore began tendering of documents. In response to this, Uche told the panel that “my Lords, this petition is different from the other petition. I have left the schedule for today but I will come back to it tomorrow when we have an updated version”. He explained further that out of 11 wards in Ayedaade Local Government, documents available were for only three wards. The Tribunal allowed Uche to continue but when it was apparent that his pronunciation of the names of individual polling units would become problematic, the Tribunal told him that members of the panel were not familiar with local names and would find it easy to work with the prepared petitioner’s schedule of documents. Immediately after this, Adegoke called the attention of the Tribunal to the fact that the schedule which Uche had made available to him and other respondents was similar to that used in Senator Omisore’s petition “word for word”. While Omisore, in his petition, challenged the result of the election in 17 Local Governments, Adegoke wondered that Owolade;s petition was complaining about the entire 30 Local Governments. Justice Ikpejime replied Adegoke that Uche was free to lead evidence on either all or some of the Local Governments adding that the ones where Owolade did not lead evidence would not be taken into consideration. Uche, in turn, replied that it was his case stressing that he could decide to abandon some Local Governments and tender documents available for others. He pleaded that the Tribunal should rise and resume proceedings at 2.30 pm for continued hearing during which he would have sorted his documents out.
Posted on: Fri, 14 Nov 2014 16:07:34 +0000