At the court session on Monday, lawyers to parties in the
petition made their final submissions and adopted their written addresses.
The INEC, APC, and Ododo urged the three-member panel
tribunal, led by Ado Birnin-Kudu, to dismiss the petition for lacking merit.
Kanu Agabi, a senior advocate of Nigeria (SAN) and lawyer to
INEC, argued that the petition lacked merit and was incompetent.
He urged the tribunal to either 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 the court
of appeal and supreme court.”
He argued that the appeal court had decided that a petition
should be struck out if the grounds on which it is established are inconsistent
with one another, and are not consistent with the reliefs.
The INEC counsel 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 only adopted about 13.1 percent of the witness depositions,” he
said.
“In this case, (the petition by the SDP and Ajaka), the
depositions adopted represent just about 3.6 percent of their witness
depositions,” Agabi said.
He noted that the petitioners only called 25 witnesses,
adding that in the mathematical calculation of evidence, 3.6 percent of Ajaka’s
witness deposition adopted in the petition amounted to a failure and therefore
ought to be dismissed.
Agabi argued that the petitioners’ witness, who testified
about the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) machines, stated that he
could not guarantee whether those were the BVAS used.
He added that out of the 25 witnesses called by the
petitioners, there was no single polling unit agent among them.
Similarly, Joseph Daudu, the lawyer to Ododo, faulted the
competence of the petition which he said was statute-barred for having
allegedly been filed out of time.
Daudu urged the tribunal to dismiss the allegation of
forgery made by the petitioners against his client.
He argued that such an issue bordered on pre-election
matters, which could not be raised in the state of post-election litigation.
Emmanuel Ukala, counsel to APC, also prayed the tribunal to
dismiss the petition for lacking merit.
Petitioners’ lawyer, Pius Akubo, faulted the claim by the
respondents that the petition was filed out of time.
He also submitted that the petitioners have provided
sufficient evidence to support their case that the election was marred by
irregularities and corrupt practices.
Akubo prayed to the tribunal to allow the petition and
reverse Ododo’s victory.
After taking the arguments, Birnin-Kudu, the chairman of the
tribunal, reserved judgment on the petition.
“The date will be communicated to both parties,” he said.
