Poll: Tribunal grants Peterside leave to inspect documents
The
Rivers State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja
on Wednesday struck out an application by Governor Nyesom Wike of the
Peoples Democratic Party seeking a stay of execution of an order
permitting the All Progressives Congress and its candidate in the April
11, 2015 election, Dr. Dakuku Peterside, to inspect the documents used
for the conduct of the poll.
Peterside and the APC had filed their
petition before the Justice Mua’zu Pindiga-led tribunal to challenge the
Independent National Electoral Commission’s declaration of Wike,
candidate of the PDP, as the winner of the April 11 poll, which the
petitioners contended was marred by electoral fraud and irregularities.
Meanwhile,
the Justice Mu’azu Pindiga-led tribunal also in a separate ruling on
Wednesday,
dismissed an application by Peterside and the APC, seeking an
order directing INEC to transfer the electoral materials used for the
conduct of the April 11 governorship poll in Rivers State, from Port
Harcourt, the state capital, to the national headquarters of the
electoral body in Abuja for easy inspection.
The petitioners also lost another
application seeking an order of the tribunal directing that all notices
of preliminary objection already filed and intended to be filed by the
respondents should only be allowed to be raised in their final written
addresses after the hearing of the petition.
In refusing the petitioners’
application, Justice Pindiga held that the application had been
overtaken by event since some of such notices of preliminary objection
had already been heard.
In all, the tribunal on Wednesday
delivered five rulings on separate interlocutory applications filed by
parties to the petition. None of the applications was granted by the
tribunal.
The rest of the applications which the
tribunal refused to grant on Wednesday included the one by the INEC,
seeking an order striking out the reply of the petitioners to its own
response to the petition.
The other motion was by Wike asking the
Justice Pindiga-led tribunal to strike out the (witness) statements on
oath of the respondents.
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