Wike vs Peterside: Tribunal delivers judgement today OCTOBER 24, 2015 :

Rivers State Governor, Nyesom Wike

The
Rivers
State
Governorship
Election
Petition
Tribunal
sitting
in
Abuja
will
on
Saturday
(today)
deliver
judgement
in the petition filed by the All Progressives Congress and its
candidate in the April 11, 2015 election, Dr. Dakuku Peterside,
challenging the election of Governor Nyesom Wike of the
Peoples Democratic Party.
The Justice Mohammed Ambrosa-led tribunal on Friday issued
notice of the judgement barely 24 hours after parties adopted
their final written addresses.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had declared
Wike winner of the election with 1,029,102 votes as against
Peterside’s 124,896.
But the petitioners, through their petitions filed on May 3, urged
the tribunal to nullify the election in the entire 23 local
government areas of the state and order fresh one on the
account of substantial non-compliance with provisions of the
Electoral Act.
The petitioners, who called 56 witnesses within 10 days allotted
to them, alleged various acts of non-compliance, including non-
accreditation of voters, failure to use card reader, resort to
manual accreditation, non-signing of forms EC8A by any party
agent and signing of forms EC8A by only PDP agents.
They alleged that the poll was marred by unauthenticated
alterations in Forms EC8A, issuance of ballot papers in excess
of 100 leaves per booklet, one PDP collation agent signing for
several wards, presiding officer signing for party agents, voter
signing for party agent and absence of collation at ward
collation centres and many more.
Counsel for the petitioners, Chief Akin Olujimi (SAN), argued that
the resort to manual accreditation lacked legal justification when
INEC had directed that card reader should be exclusively used
for accreditation.
He said there were only 293,072 accredited voters comprising
those whose Permanent Voter Cards were read, but whose
fingerprints could not be verified by the card reader, adding that
Wike and other respondents failed to justify the total
accreditation of 1,228,614 votes.
But the respondents – INEC, Wike and PDP – who jointly called
40 witnesses, urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition on the
grounds that it was constituted by unfounded allegations which
the petitioners failed to establish.
Wike’s lawyer, Mr. Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), argued that
Peterside was not qualified to contest the April 11 election
because he was sponsored by the APC in contravention of
Section 85 (1) of the Electoral Act.
Ukala argued that the petitioners failed to call witnesses who
conducted the election, a development which he said was fatal
to their case.
PDP’s lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), said the petition
was incompetent and the tribunal lacked jurisdiction to amend
the petition which he said was replete with bogus reliefs.
INEC’s lawyer, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), said the petitioners
failed to prove the alleged irregularities.