Rivers Poll: Tension As Tribunal Passes Verdict Tomorrow

The Justice Mohammed Ambrosa-led tribunal will on Saturday, October 24, decide the case filed by the All Progressives Congress and its governorship candidate, challenging the victory of the Rivers state governor, Nyesom Wike, at the state election petition tribunal sitting in Abuja.

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Wike and Peterside

The leadership of the tribunal issued the notice of the judgment today, October 23, barely 24 hours after parties adopted their final written addresses on Thursday, October 22, The Punch reports.

The APC alongside its gubernatorial candidate, Dakuku Peterside had been contesting the declaration of Governor Wike by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as the winner of the Rivers state governorship poll in the April 11 general election.

The INEC had declared Wike who contested on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner of the election with 1,029,102 votes as against Peterside’s 124,896.

Wike’s victory is being challenged on the basis of the fact that the elections were marred by violence.

However, the APC and Peterside in their petition filed on May 3, had urged the tribunal to nullify the election in the entire 23 local government areas of the state and order fresh one on the account of alleged substantial non-compliance with provisions of the Electoral Act and Manual for Election Officers 2015.

In the process of ascertaining the veracity of the whole issue, the tribunal had ordered the petitioners to provide witnesses in 10 days.

The petitioners who called 56 witnesses within the allotted number of days alleged that various acts of non-compliance include: “non-accreditation/improper accreditation, failure to use card reader, resort to manual accreditation, non-signing of forms EC8A by any party agent and signing of forms EC8A by only PDP agents.”

But the respondents – INEC, Wike and PDP – who jointly called 40 witnesses, urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition on the grounds that it was constituted by unfounded allegations which the petitioners failed to establish.

“Peterside was not qualified to contest the April 11 election because he was sponsored by the APC in contravention of Section 85 (1) of the Electoral Act,” Wike’s lawyer, Emmanuel Ukala argued.

He also argued that the petitioners failed to call witnesses who conducted the election; a development which he said was fatal to their case.

On his part, the PDP’s lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), also maintained that the petition was incompetent and the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to amend the petition which he said was replete with some bogus and unproved prayers reliefs.

Further adding to the arguments, INEC’s lawyer, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), argued that the petitioners failed to prove the alleged irregularities and electoral irregularities polling unit by polling unit, which is the standard of proof set by the Supreme Court.