The Osun State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has commenced hearing of the suit filed by Governor Adegboyega Oyetola and the All Progressives Congress in Osogbo on Monday.
At the sitting on Monday, counsel to Oyetola and APC, Chief Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) informed the court of their intention to tender some documentary evidence to prove the alleged substantial non compliance with the Electoral Act by INEC in the conduct of the July 16 election.
But Counsel for the PDP, Alex Izinyon (SAN), opposed move, claiming that it ran contrary to Paragraph 3 of the pre-hearing report which indicated that list of witnesses should be filed 24 hours to the hearing.
He further argued that since the petitioners have in his own estimation disobeyed the tribunal order, the petition should be dismissed as the consequences of the action.
Counsel to INEC, Professor Paul Ananaba (SAN) also chorused his line of thought and said that the attempt to tender the documents violates the tribunal order and the petition should be dismissed.
But Counsel to Adeleke, Onyeachi Ikpeazu (SAN) thought otherwise. He said since the petitioners were ready to tender the documents, they ought to have allowed the respondents to have access to it earlier and cross- check, so that the tendering would be seamless.
The petitioners’ Counsel, Fagbemi while responding tutored the PDP’s counsel, saying that paragraph 3 of the pre-hearing report being relied on by him was not in any way referring to documentary evidence, but calling of witnesses.
Hear him: “My Lord, there can only be consequences if we have violated the order of the court, but in this case, we have not breached any order. The Paragraph 3 refers only to calling of witnesses, not documentary evidence.
“There is different between the witnesses and documentary evidence, but I’m used to my learned friend (referring to Iziyon), he is like that. The issue is, ‘you have to sing before you dance’. So, the issue of consequences does not arise at all because we have not violated anything.
“It is when we start calling witnesses without following your Lordships order that they can raise issue. But I’m sure we are not going to breach the court order. Therefore, my Lord, we want to start by tendering of documents”, Fagbemi said.
Following the above submissions, the tribunal Chairman, Justice Tertsea Kume, asked the parties to discuss and agree on how the documents would be tendered that would make it seamless, to which the parties agreed.
Once they were done, they reported back to the tribunal with Fagbemi saying they had agreed that the tribunal should rise and return on Tuesday to receive the documents from the bar after all parties must have looked at them.
To this end, the Tribunal subsequently adjourned till Tuesday for the continuation of hearing.
Fielding question from journalists after the sitting, Fagbemi said: “As you have observed, the tribunal didn’t find anything wrong as to what we have done. However, it was agreed among Counsels that we should streamline the documents we want to tender so that it will ease the procedure.
“We have prepared our own documents that is what we have given to them, they want to cross-check whether those documents tally and if they have any objection, it doesn’t stop court admitting those documents with liberty from whoever is not happy with it to do it by showing it at the end of the day with a separate written address which will chronicle or articulate his objection.”
The tribunal sitting continue tomorrow.
