Kaduna : Tribunal to deliberate on INEC letter, as REC fails to appear ⋆

Jul 3, 2019 1



The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal on Wednesday adjourned sitting to July 4, to deliberate on a correspondence received from Alhaji Kaugama Abdullahi, the Resident Commissioner in Kaduna State.

The Tribunal had on Tuesday ordered the REC to appear before it in response to the request of the Petitioners, the Peoples Democratic Party(PDP) and Alhaji Isah Ashiru, its Governorship Candidate.

The REC, however, failed to appear before the Justice Ibrahim Bako-led Tribunal.

The PDP and its governorship candidate are challenging INEC for Returning Gov Nasiru El-Rufai, candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) as winner of the governorship elections in the March 9 polls.

The Tribunal had granted the request of the PDP and Ashiru to subpoena the Resident Commissioner to appear before it and answer questions relating to the conduct of the March 9 election.

Counsel to the petitioners, Dr. Paul Ananaba (SAN) had at the resumed sitting on Wednesday reminded the Tribunal that the INEC Resident Commissioner had failed to honour the order.

Bako, however, told counsel to the petitioners that the Tribunal had received a communication from the INEC Commissioner and would deliberate on it and take action during the adjourned date.

Meanwhile, the petitioners had during the hearing on Wednesday, presented more witnesses and exhibits to prove it their claims that the election was rigged in favour of the APC.

The petitioners had assembled 685 witnesses to testify before the Tribunal within two weeks.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports the Petitioners had so far presented 131 witnesses even as the two weeks deadline for them to do so ends on July 4.