Delta polls: Tribunal admits Okowa’s exhibits, overules Labour Party

Governor Okowa’s defense in the on-going Governorship Election
Tribunal sitting in Asaba got a significant boost on Monday when the
Chairman of the tribunal Justice Nasiru Gunmi, overruled an objection
by the Labour Party seeeking to stop counsel to Okowa from tendering
exhibits, which could weaken Labour Party’s case.

Counsel to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Mr. Ken Mozie(SAN) had during cross
examination of Labour Party (LP) state chairman, Chief Toni Ezeagwu,
who is also one of the star witness to Ogboru, sought to tender a
document containing notice of Labour party gubernatorial primary to
INEC before the tribunal.

However, counsel to Ogboru, Mr. Dele Adesina (SAN), sensing the
damage the document will cause to Labour party’s case objected on the
premise that the document that Okowa team wanted to tender were
neither pleaded, listed nor front loaded. A point he maintained,
violates the provisions of the Electoral Act 2012.
But, Mozia, rose to the occasion by pointing out that the document
was pleaded in paragraph one of the first respondent’s reply. He
noted that the essence of cross examination was to test the veracity
of the witness’ statement and that the document he sought to tender
was a key element in testing the witness.

To add fillip to Mozia’s argument, Counsels to INEC and PDP , Dr.
Onyeachi Ikpeazu (SAN) and Mr. Timothy Kehinde aligned themselves
with the position of Mozia (SAN) and restated that under Evidence
Act, a witness can be cross examined on any document that is not
listed. They maintained that in the instant case, the documents sought
to be tendered were frontloaded and listed. At this juncture,
Justice Nasiru Gunmi overruled counsel to Ogboru and admitted the
document.
Meanwhile, The Labour Party Chairman, Ezeagwu, had while in the
witness box admitted that some LP agents were arrested by the police
in connection to the theft of some INEC documents and told the
tribunal that the matter is currently in court.

There was an attempt by Ezeagwu to disown his statement as he told the
tribunal that while preparing the statement deposed on oath before
the court, that INEC officials, party agents and his lawyers made
input and assisted with relevant information in the course of
preparing the statement. As a result, he averred that the statement
was not his whole idea.
But he affirmed that the governorship election which PDP, APC and LP
participated in was conducted largely with the use of card readers.

He said that during the election, information about the election
results were received from their party agents as he did not
participate in the uploading of information into INEC saver.
And when he was confronted with the election result figures where
Okowa scored 724,680 votes , to defeat Ogboru, who polled 130,028,
and that even if the 205,000 disputed votes were removed from the
total score, that Okowa score higher votes , Ezeagwu said that INEC
calculation could not have been correct.

Attempts by the INEC counsel to further cross examine Ezeagwu met a
brick wall as he( Ezeagwu) asked INEC counsel to direct further
questions on the subject to his party’s counsel and declined to answer
further questions .
It was a sort of drama as the tribunal chairman intervened to compel
Ezeagwu to answer questions as directed by the respondents counsel.
But even the Justice’s intervention was rebuffed and Justice Gunmi had
to ask him to step out of the witness box and adjourned the matter to
tomorrow, 8th of September, 2015 for continuation of trial.