On Tuesday, the governorship election petitions tribunal in Cross River will deliver judgment on the petition filed by Sandy Onor of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the victory of Bassey Otu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The tribunal secretary, Akawu Bambu, announced this in a statement on Sunday.

The suit, EPT/CR/GOV/02/2023, was jointly instituted by Mr Onor and the PDP.

The counsels to Onor and Otu, JY Musa, and Mike Ozekhome, respectively, presented their written addresses and were adopted by the three-person tribunal.

In the final written address, Mr Musa told the court that evidence extracted under cross-examination of the respondents fortified the case of their petition and confirmed the falsity of the evidence presented by the second and third respondents (Mr Otu and Peter Odey).

Mr Onor closed his case after calling some witnesses, while Mr Otu called 10 witnesses.

The tribunal led by Justice Oken Inneh had reserved judgment following the adoption of written addresses by both parties on August 13.

Mr Musa said the petitioners’ case was not allegations of forgery against the respondents (Messrs Otu and Odey), arguing that the authorities they cited to the effect that they needed to call witnesses from institutions were non-sequitur, their case is that the second and third respondents lied on oath.

He insisted that the second and third respondents (Messrs Otu and Odey) brought documents to show that they forged documents. While trying to say they did not lie on oath, they opened a Pandora’s box where “we saw the discrepancies.”

“I, therefore, urge the tribunal to declare the votes of the second and third respondents wasted because they were not qualified to stand for the election and declare the petitioners’ winner of the elections,” argued Mr Musa.

On his part, lead counsel to the second and third respondents, Mr Ozekhome, urged the court to dismiss the petition “for being frivolous, unmeritorious, gold-digging, distracting and for constituting an abuse of the court process.”

He added, “Withdrawal of grounds two and three by the petitioners sounded a death knell to their own petition because it was an admission that the elections were validly held.”

Counsel to the first respondent (INEC), KO Balogun, urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition and adopted Mr Ozekhome’s submission regarding the qualification of the second and third respondents.

Mr Ozekhome had urged the court to dismiss the petition for being frivolous, unmeritorious, distracting and constituting an abuse of the court process.

He added that the withdrawal of grounds two and three by the petitioners sounded a death knell to their petition because it was an admission that the elections were validly held.

“From my own submission today, the truth is that, from the 10th of July 2023, when they withdrew grounds two and three of the petition, which talked about discrepancies, non-accreditation, non-e-transmission through BVAS, through iRev and all the other alleged malpractices,” Mr Ozekhome explained.

He added, “That time when they withdrew those allegations, which were funny and untrue allegations, their petition collapsed like a pack of cards.” 

INEC declared Mr Otu as the winner of the election, awarding him 258,619 votes to defeat the PDP candidate, awarded 179,636 votes.

(NAN)