The Cross River State Governorship elections petition tribunal has reserved judgment in a suit seeking to remove the Governor of Cross River State, Bassey Otu and his deputy, Hon Peter Odey from power.
In suit number EPT/CR/GOV/02/2023 which was jointly instituted by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) governorship flagbearer in the 2023 election, Professor Sandy Onor and his Party, PDP against the election which saw Senator Bassey Otu as the winner.
The tribunal, led by Justice Okenn Ineh, announced it would communicate a date for judgment to the parties after counsels adopted their final written addresses.
Addressing the court, counsel to the petitioners, Dr. Joshua Y. Musa, told the court that evidence extracted under cross-examination of the respondents goes to fortify the case of their petition and also confirm the falsity of the evidence presented by the second and third respondents (Governor Otu and Peter Odey).
He said the case of the petitioners is not allegations of forgery against any of the respondents and so all the authorities they cited to the effect that they needed to call witnesses from institutions are non-sequitur, rather their case is that the second and third respondents lied on oath.
He insisted that the second and third respondents brought documents to show that they forged documents.
In the process of trying to say they did not lie on oath, they opened a Pandora’s box where we saw the discrepancies.
He urged 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 petitioner’s winner of the elections.
On his part, lead counsel to the second and third respondents Prof. Mike Ozekhome, urged the court to dismiss the petition for being frivolous, unmeritorious, distracting and for constituting an abuse of the court process.
He added that the withdrawal of grounds two and three by the petitioners sounded a death kernel to their own 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, that time when they withdrew those allegations which were funny and untrue allegations, their petition collapsed like a pack of cards, he said.
On his part, counsel to the first respondents (INEC) K. O. Balogun urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition and also adopted Professor Ozekhome’s submission in respect of the qualification of the second and third respondents.
While the two respondents were absent, the first petitioner, Sandy Onor was present in court on Monday.
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