DELTA GUBER POLLS: TRIBUNAL ADMITS OKOWA’S EXHBITS- OVERULES LABOUR PARTY

The defense of Governor Okowa and the PDP in the on-going Governorship Election Tribunal sitting in Asaba got a significant boost today when the Chairman of the tribunal Justice Nasiru Gunmi, overruled an objection by the Labour Party seeeking to stop counsel to Okowa from tendering exhibits, which could weaken labour party’s case.

Counsel to Governor Ifeanyi Okowa, Mr. Ken Mozie(SAN) had during cross examination of Labour Party (LP) state chairman, Chief Toni Ezeagwu, who is also one of the star witness to Ogboru, sought to tender a document containing notice of Labour party gubernatorial primary to INEC before the tribunal.

However, counsel to Ogboru, Mr. Dele Adesina (SAN), sensing the damage the document will cause to Labour party’s case objected on the premise that the document that Okowa team wanted to tender were neither pleaded, listed nor front loaded. A point he maintained, violates the provisions of the Electoral Act 2012.

But, Mozia, rose to the occasion by pointing out that the document was pleaded in paragraph one of the first respondent’s reply. He noted that the essence of cross examination was to test the veracity of the witness’ statement and that the document he sought to tender was a key element in testing the witness.

To add fillip to Mozia’s argument,Counsels to INEC and PDP , Dr. Onyeachi Ikpeazu (SAN) and Mr. Timothy Kehinde aligned themselves with the position of Mozia (SAN) and restated that under Evidence Act, a witness can be cross examined on any document that is not listed. They maintained that in the instant case, the documents sought to be tendered were frontloaded and listed. At that juncture, Justice Nasiru Gunmi overruled counsel to Ogboru and admitted the document.
Meanwhile, The Labour Party Chairman, Ezeagwu, had while in the witness box admitted that some LP agents were arrested by the police in connection to the theft of some INEC documents and told the tribunal that the matter is currently in court.

There was an attempt by Ezeagwu to disown his statement as he told the tribunal that while preparing the statement deposed on oath before the court, that INEC officials, party agents and his lawyers made input and assisted with relevant information in the course of preparing the statement. As a result, he averred that the statement was not his whole idea. 
But he affirmed that the governorship election which PDP, APC and LP participated in was conducted largely with the use of card readers.
He said that during the election, information about the election results were received from their party agents as he did not participate in the uploading of information into INEC saver.

And when he was confronted with the election result figures where Okowa scored 724,680 votes , to defeat Ogboru, who polled 130,028, and that even if the 205,000 disputed votes were removed from the total score, that Okowa score higher votes , Ezeagwu said that INEC calculation could not have been correct.

Attempts by the INEC counsel to further cross examine Ezeagwu met a brick wall as he( Ezeagwu) asked INEC counsel to direct further questions on the subject to his party’s counsel and declined to answer further questions .

It was a sort of drama as the tribunal chairman intervened to compel Ezeagwu to answer questions as directed by the respondents counsel. But even the Justice’s intervention was rebuffed and Justice Gunmi had to ask him to step out of the witness box and adjourned the matter to tomorrow, 8th of September, 2015 for continuation of trial.