The Akwa Ibom State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Uyo has reserved judgement in the petitions filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Obong Akan Udofia and his counterpart of the New Nigeria People’s Party, NNPP, Senator John James Akpanudoede against governor Umo Eno of the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, News About Nigeria reports.
In the APC’s suit, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Umo Eno, the PDP, Bassey Akpan and the Young People’s Party (YPP) are listed as first, second, third, fourth and fifth respondents, respectively.
At the resumption of court proceedings, the lead counsel of the party, Dr Hassan Liman (SAN), urged the tribunal to dismiss the objections by the respondents.
Liman, therefore, urged the tribunal to grant all the reliefs of the petitioners by disqualifying both the 2nd respondent (Umo Eno) and 4th respondent (Bassey Akpan) on the grounds of non-qualification and corrupt matters, respectively.
INEC’s Lead Counsel, Offiong Offiong (SAN), who adopted their address, prayed the Court to set aside the petition noting that, the first Petitioner Udofia failed to prove why he should be declared winner of the said Governorship Election.
Udofia also argued that the Petitioners throughout their argument failed to prove that they have a majority of the lawful votes cast.
On his part, the lead counsel to the second respondent, (Umo Eno), Paul Usoro (SAN) urged the tribunal to dismiss the issues of 1981 and 1983 WAEC certificates forgery given that the case has already been decided by the Court of Appeal, Federal High Court, and Supreme Court where certificates were found to be genuine and not forged.
“I think this issue of certificate forgery should be rested now. We are urging your Lordships not to admit all the documents we have objected to. Our submission is for this Honourable Tribunal to dismiss this petition in its entirety,” Usoro appealed.
After listening to the counsels to all the parties, the three-member panel led by Justice Adekunle Adeleye adopted their final written addresses yesterday, noting that the date of the judgement would be communicated to the parties through their counsels.
