The Elections Petitions Tribunal sitting in Asaba, Delta State on Tuesday upheld the petitions of the governorship candidates of the All Progressives Congress, Olorogun O’Teger Emerhor, and the Labour Party, Chief Great Ogboru, against Governor Ifeanyi Okowa.
The three-man tribunal rejected the preliminary objections raised by Okowa.
The Governor and the Peoples Democratic Party in the state had in two separate applications queried the jurisdiction of the tribunal to entertain their petitions and prayed it to quash them, having been abandoned.
When the matter came up last week, counsel to Okowa, Dr. Alex Iziyon (SAN), who appeared with Ken Mozia (SAN) and seven others, urged the tribunal not to grapple with failure but be bounded by Okowa’s objections.
But in their separate arguments, counsels to Ogboru, Dele Adesina (SAN), who appeared with nine others, and Emerhor, Thompson Okpoko (SAN), who appeared with three others, urged the panel not to be swayed by Okowa’s mischievious objections.
According to them, it was a delay tactics by Okowa to limit the stipulated 180 days life-span of the tribunal.
Okpoko argued: “It is a mischief by the respondents (Okowa, PDP and INEC) to seek that the petitions be struck out without hearing.
“The proper thing to do is to hear the petitions on their merit as provided for in Section 38 of the amended constitution.”
Before fixing the next sitting for July 9, the tribunal, headed by Justice Nasil Gunmi, averred that since the petitions and the objections constitute the life-wire of the matter in contention, they are thereby entertained.
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