By Nelson Utip
Timi Sylva , The Governorship candidate of The All Progressives Congress, APC in the last November gubernatorial election in Bayelsa state and the Party has vilified the state election petition tribunal by passing a vote of no confidence on it in on Monday in Abuja.
The duo accused the Tribunal headed by Justice Adekunle Adeleye of bias against them in the conduct of proceedings, findings and decisions calling for their disbandment and reconstitution.
This was contained in a strongly worded petition forwarded to the President of the Court of Appeal where both APC and Sylva accused the Tribunal of denying them their Constitutional right to a fair hearing as required by law.
The APC and Timi Sylva in a petition dated March 4 claimed that they had lined up 234 witnesses to establish their petition against the declaration of Senator Douye Diri as a winner of the poll, but the tribunal expected them to produce all of them within one week which was not possible.
The petition was signed by a Senior Advocate of Nigeria SAN, Sylvester Emenike Elema and said the APC and Sylva agreed to call 25 witnesses daily and lamented that the Tribunal allowed them to call only 8 witnesses per day.
According to The SAN, they had to hurriedly close their case on February 27th after calling only 49 out of the 234 witnesses.
He further submitted that the action of the Tribunal was a clear case of a breach of the rights of the petitioners to fair hearing as they were prevented from calling all their witnesses when the Tribunal still had three months to sit.
APC and Sylva also alleged that from the records of proceedings they obtained, it could be accertained that the Tribunal had made up it’s mind to favour the respondents.
They accused the Tribunal of distorting the oral testimony of their witnesses in the record of proceedings and questioned the authenticity and weight of polling unit election results they tendered and coming to the wrong conclusions in it’s findings.
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“the pattern of writing witness statements on oath employed by the petitioners was the same and done by the same person”. The petition read in part, as they frowned at the comment that “comparisons done on two exhibits showed the same lettering”.
They duo in their demands want the dissolution of the Tribunal and reconstitution of a fresh one with unbiased mandate to conclude the proceedings in the remaining three-month life span of the petition.
They also in a separate letter brought to the Tribunal through their counsel Mr R. O. Balogun, demanded the adjournment of proceedings of the tribunal indefinitely pending the time the Court of Appeal President will come out with a decision on the petition.
On Monday when the tribunal was to resume hearing, the Chairman, Justice Adekunle Adeleye intimated lawyers to various parties of a petition questioning the member’s neutrality and integrity and seeking indefinite adjournment in the hearing of the case, he pondered on where the Tribunal members went wrong as alleged by the APC and Sylva and called for reactions.
In his response, Counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Charles Edosomwan, SAN, said that both APC and Sylva were not fair to the Tribunal in their allegations of bias and distortion of facts.
Chris Uche SAN who stood for Governor Douye Diri, Chukwuma Machukwu Ume SAN counsel to Deputy Governor Lawrence Ewhrujakpo and Tayo Oyetibo SAN who represented the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP all expressed misgivings to the accusations of Sylvia and APC, however they unanimously agreed to the adjournment as requested by the duo.
Justice Adekunle Adeleye in a short ruling adjourned the matter indefinitely, to await the decision of the Court of Appeal President on the allegations of bias and denial of fair hearing by Sylva and APC.
