The three-member Ondo Governorship Election
Petition Tribunal on Friday upheld the declaration of
Governor Olusegun Mimiko as the winner of the
October 2012 governorship election in the state.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had
on October 21, 2012, announced Mimiko as the
winner of the poll, which was widely adjudged as
free, fair and very credible by local and foreign
election observers and monitors.
Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Andovar Kaka'an
dismissed the petitions of Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu of
the Action Congress of Nigeria and Chief Olusola Oke
of the Peoples Democratic Party for lacking in merit.
Kaka'an added that the petitioners and their
witnesses failed to prove beyond reasonable doubts,
allegations of irregularities, violence and non-
compliance with the Electoral Act pleaded in the
suits.
Kaka'an also ruled that the issue of illegal injection
of voter register allegedly carried out by the
Independent National Electoral Commission was a
pre-election matter that should have been challenged
at a high court before the October 20, 2012 election.
He said since INEC had supplied soft copies of the
voter register 30 days before the poll to all parties in
the election, anyone who discovered any form of
irregularity should have approached a high court to
complain.
The panel also dismissed the reports of the expert
witnesses of the petitioners, because apart from the
fact that their submissions were discovered not to be
factual, they confessed during cross-examination
that their services were not at the instance of the
court.
Kaka'an further held that there was no evidence
supplied either by the petitioners or their witnesses
to justify the fact that the 164,072 names allegedly
injected into the 2012 register by INEC was done in
collaboration with the Labour Party, whose
candidate won the poll.
He added that there was no proof to show that either
Mimiko, who won the poll, or his party benefited
from the alleged injection of the register with illegal
voters.
He said the expert witnesses confessed during cross-
examination by counsel to the defendants that they
carried out their assignments for financial
considerations and that their clients needed their
report to substantiate claims in their petitions.
He declared that all the submissions of Akeredolu
and Oke in their petitions and the evidences of their
witnesses were "bundles of primary and secondary
hearsay, which failed woefully to substantiate their
claims.
The panel chairman said the petitioners were
inconsistent and failed to substantiate their
allegations with adequate proofs.
He said, "The petitioners failed woefully to prove
their allegations of crimes allegedly perpetrated
during the poll by the defendants beyond any
reasonable doubts.
"No single witness testified that he or she did not
vote or that the votes were taken away to
unauthorised places after the election while no
police report, which indicated violence during the
election, was tendered by any of the parties.
"The issues relating to the voter register are pre-
election matters which the tribunal has no
jurisdiction to entertain."
The tribunal also carpeted the petitioners for their
failure to extend pleadings to all the polling units in
the state while none of them brought a single voter
card or ballot box to the court to prove their
allegations of non-compliance with the Electoral Act
2010.
He stated that none of the witnesses called by the
petitioners actually witnessed the commission of
crimes during the election by the defendants but
relied substantially on information from their
friends and party members.
He, therefore, dismissed both suits for lacking in
merit and their inability to prove all allegations
raised beyond reasonable doubts.
However, both Akeredolu and Oke had said their
legal teams had been directed to start a fresh process
to appeal the judgment.
Oke said, "The ruling fell short of the expectation of
the Ondo State people and we shall challenge it at the
Court of Appeal.
"The party is not surprised as we had earlier
reported the compromising attitude of this panel,
when it erroneously struck out the name of our party
and vital paragraphs of our petition, which we
challenged at the Appeal Court and our prayers were
upheld.
"We are consulting as a party with our candidate,
Chief Olusola Oke and the national leadership of the
party and our legion of counsel on the next step we
are going to take."
Akeredolu, through a statement by the Publicity
Secretary of the ACN in the state, Mr. Rotimi Agbede,
also expressed his resolve to head for the appellate
court.
He said, "It is rather unfortunate that the trial judges
chose to close their eyes on the overwhelming oral
and documentary evidences presented by the
petitioners even when INEC principally refused to
defend itself at the tribunal.
"The ruling of the tribunal, no doubt, had put the
judiciary on trial in the open court of the people who
relied heavily on the courts to dispense justice
without fair or favour."
But Mimiko said the verdict had confirmed that the
Nigerian judiciary was living up to its role as the
final impartial arbiter in all contentious matters.
He said, "We, as government, are mindful of the
onerous task of meeting the development challenges
of our people; we know that the fostering of
understanding between the government and the
people will engender a more conducive environment
for the deepening of the dividends of good
governance."

Source: mobile.punchng.com/output.php?link=http://www.punchng.com/news/acn-pdp-kick-as-tribunal-upholds-mimikos-victory/

Congrats to Mimiko Oya, where the parrie at!?

...and i thought this news will be running on multiple threads on front page....

na wa ooo ...