The Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Benin City on Thursday granted the prayer of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, to have the ballot papers used for the conduct of the election in four local government areas recounted, sending supporters of the party in the state into wild jubilation.
The local government areas are Egor, Etsako West, Etsako East and Akoko-Edo.
The tribunal had on Wednesday reserved ruling on the matter for Thursday after counsel to the respondents namely, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Governor Godwin Obaseki, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) opposed the application for a recount by lead counsel for the petitioners, Yusuff Alli.
In their submissions, counsel to INEC, Onyinyen Anumonyen, said the petitioners’ counsel should have come by way of motion on notice and that the tribunal’s leave should have been sought and obtained before the application could be made, while counsel to Obaseki, Ken Mozia, argued that the documents in issue were not before the tribunal as exhibits.
An administrative officer with INEC Ahmed Salman, had on Wednesday, February 7, brought the ballot papers to the tribunal after the tribunal granted the application of the petitioners for INEC to be subpoenaed to produce the ballot papers.
In his ruling, chairman of the tribunal, Justice Ahmed Badamasi, said “the fact that the application for the recount of the ballot papers was made orally does not in our view make the application incompetent and we so hold”.
Badamasi said it was important to note that the petitioners had in their paragraph 753 made it abundantly clear that it would, before or at the trial of this petition, apply and pray this tribunal to order the production of the ballot papers and the consequent recount with a view to show this tribunal that the second respondent was not duly elected.
He noted that the first respondent, INEC, did not in his reply oppose the paragraph and therefore deemed to have consented to the recounting of the ballot papers”.
The tribunal similarly noted that the second respondents in their paragraph 811, had stated that counting of ballot papers was acceptable to them provided that the ballot papers remained intact.
Following the judgment, the recount of the ballot papers commenced at about 11:45 and was restarted at about 3:20pm after the tribunal returned from a recess.
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