The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abeokuta, the Ogun State capital, on Tuesday, slammed the counsel for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its gubernatorial candidate, Oladipupo Adebutu, for committing seeming blunder in the mode of their presentation before the court.

The party was flayed for its failure to comply with court’s directive which stipulates that documents scheduled to be presented before the court ought to have been tendered from the bar for parties involved to scrutinise and authenticate.

At the resumption of proceeding, the counsel for the PDP and Oladipupo Adebutu,  Godwin Uche, SAN, told the tribunal of the readiness of his team to formally commence trial immediately, adding that they have filled the list of their scheduled of documents before the Panel and have also physically brought all the said documents before it.

Counsel for INEC (1st Respondent), Remi Olatumura, SAN, in his objection on the point of law, cautioned the move to commit such blunder, saying while his team was ready to move on with the case, it is always imperative for the petitioner to have shown the documents to all the parties before insisting that he had not set his eye on the document for authentication.

Olatumura added that he owes his client the duty to confirm and certify that those documents actually emanated from INEC and accordingly scrutinise it.

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The counsel for Ogun State Governor, Dapo Abiodun (2nd Respondent), Kehinde Ogunwunmiju, SAN, said going by the volume of the tendered documents and in line with procedure rules, the over 6000 documents ought to have been presented from the bar earlier for the benefit of the parties to view and confirm its validity.

Ogunwunmiju also informed the tribunal that the PDP’s counsel had accordingly followed the procedure rules in a similar case involving the duo in Ebonyi State but decided to act otherwise in Ogun State.

He then stressed that the parties needed more time to check and authenticate the documents, arguing that 24 hours might not be feasible and realistic to scrutinise the voluminous documents.

He also called for the list of witnesses at least 24 hours before the commencement of the case, in which PDP also failed to comply.

The positions of the counsels to the first and the second respondents were corroborated by Kunle Kalejaiye, SAN, who represented the 3rd respondent (APC).

He, therefore, prayed the court to grant two days’ leave for proper scrutiny of the documents.

Ruling on the arguments, the chairman of the tribunal, Justice H.N. Kunaza, agreed on the point of law that the PDP had failed to comply with the court’s directive that the tendered documents ought to have been presented from the bar for the purpose of thorough verification and authentication by all the parties involved.

Justice Kunaza also queried the reason why Uche refused to comply with the procedure rules in Ogun State, whereas he followed the same rules in a similar case in Ebonyi State.

The tribunal’s chairman, therefore, granted the parties two days to thoroughly scrutinise the documents and adjourned till Thursday, July 6, for continuation of hearing.

The Star