Ifeanyi IbeGovernorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Enugu State on Friday kicked off with the National Youth Service Corps standing as a witness for the Labour Party and its candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, who had brought the petition against the election of Peter Mbah as governor.
The Labour Party and Edeoga are challenging the election of Governor Mbah on grounds that he did not secure the highest lawful votes cast in the March 18 governorship election as well as that his NYSC discharge certificate presented to the Independent National Electoral Commission was forged.
The PBA recalls that the Tribunal had earlier subpoenaed NYSC in response to LP’s application that the Corps appeared before the panel to defend its certificate which the governor had submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission to participate in the election. Armada of SANs Can’t Save Peter Mbah, Says Enugu’s Foremost CSO
Presenting its testimony, the NYSC tendered the original discharge certificate which Mbah was supposed to possess, and the forged one.
The NYSC also tendered a letter written by Oma and Partners, a law firm in Abuja, which had asked it to scrutinise the discharge certificate submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission by the governor.
The petitioners, represented by Chief Adegboyega Awomolo, SAN, who is the lead counsel, alongside Dr Valerie Azinge, SAN, Ifeanyi Ogenyi Esq, and others, led the Petitioners Witness 1 (PW1) in evidence.
The PW1 is the Director of Certification, NYSC, Aliyu Abdul Mohammed, who adopted his written deposition on oath.
Awomolo sought to tender the witness’ deposition on oath as evidence before the tribunal.
The third respondent, Peoples Democratic Party’s counsel, Anthony Ani, SAN, objected to the admissibility of the document and opted to move a motion dated and filed on the 7th day of July 2023, praying the tribunal to strike out the written deposition on oath of the PW1 on the ground of incompetence.
The 1st respondent, INEC, as well as the 2nd respondent (Peter Mbah) aligned themselves with the submission of Ani and prayed the court to strike out the written deposition of Mohammed (PW1) for lack of competence.
Relying on the Court of Appeal decision in the case of ANDP & anor V INEC as well as that of Damina & anor V Adamu and ors, the respondents’ counsels asked the court to strike out the written deposition on oath of the PW1 for lack of competence.
But the petitioners’ counsel relied on the case of Ararume & Anor V INEC, which he said, was a conflicting decision with the authorities cited by the respondents’ counsel and asked the court to admit the written deposition on oath of the PW1.
In a short ruling, the tribunal admitted the document and reserved ruling on the objections raised by the respondents for final judgement.
The PW1 was then taken in for examination-in-chief.
Mohammed, therefore, stated that he acted on a subpoena served on the Director General of the NYSC or any other official to appear before the tribunal for the purposes of giving evidence in order to clear some issues which bothered on the certificate that Mbah presented purporting to have been issued by the agency.
The subpoena was admitted in evidence without objection from the respondents and was marked as exhibit PTC/01/06.
The PW1’s identification card as staff of NYSC was also submitted and admitted in evidence and marked as exhibit PTC/01/07.
The witness stated that in obedience to the subpoena by the tribunal, he came with the authentic discharge certificate of the governor, as well as the one purportedly given to him by the Corps, in line with his deposition on Oath as contained in paragraph three.
The respondent’s counsel objected to the admissibility of the documents and reserved their reasons for final written addresses.
The tribunal also admitted the documents and marked them as exhibits PTC/ 01/08 a and b.
The petitioners also fielded as Petitioner’s Witness 2, who is from an Abuja-based law firm, Mary Nneoma Elijah, a principal partner in the law firm of Oma and Partners.
In seeking to tender her written deposition on oath as evidence by the Petitioner, counsel to the respondent objected, citing the same grounds raised in the first stage.
The court admitted the document and reserved the ruling during the judgement.
She also adopted the subpoena of the tribunal dated the 21st day of June 2023, which was admitted and marked as exhibit PTC/01/09.
The witness’ letter to INEC, as well as the reply given by INEC, were sought to be tendered by the petitioners’ counsel met with objections from the respondents’ counsel.
However, the letters, as well as the discharged certificate, were admitted and marked as exhibits PTC/01/11 a, b & c respectively.
A letter addressed to the presiding justice of the Federal High Court, Lagos Division, for the production of the appointment letter dated 14 July 2003, appointing Barr Peter Mbah as the Chief of Staff to the then governor of Enugu state, Dr Chimaroke Nnamani, in the same year he claimed he was serving, was also admitted in evidence in spite of respondent’s objections and marked as exhibit PTC/01/13 a&b.
During cross-examination, the 1st respondent’s counsel, Abdul Mohammed, applying for the subpoena, asked “confirm to this tribunal that the subpoena did not ask you about anything at the Federal High court”. In response, PW2 responded, “True”.
Abdul Mohammed further asked the PW2: “Confirm to this tribunal that you have given to the petitioners the contents of these letters at the time they were preparing this petition.”
To this question, the PW2, however, responded, “It’s false, the letters are public documents which are in the public domain. Anybody can ask for the letters and they will be given to him.”
The matter was therefore adjourned to Tuesday, 11 July 2023 for further hearing.
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