… Tribunal asks INEC to bring Osun Gov’s complete file Saturday
BY TIMOTHY AGBOR, OSOGBO
The Independent National Electoral Commission on Thursday furnished the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal with some documents as the Secondary School Certificate and Testimonial of the state governor, Ademola Adeleke.
The petitioners, Gboyega Oyetola and All Progressives Congress complained to the tribunal that the certificates were faded and illegible to read.
The tribunal during its last sitting had ordered the Chief National Electoral Commissioner of INEC to produce Adeleke’s Nomination Form and credentials used in the Osun 2018 governorship election.
At the resumed hearing of the petition, on Thursday, a deputy director of the electoral body, Mrs. Joan Arams, who represented INEC, produced the said documents.
While perusing the documents, counsel to Oyetola and the APC, Chief Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) informed the tribunal that the pages containing the Secondary School Certificate and Testimonial of Adeleke were not legible at all.
He said, “The first document in question has the heading ‘West Africa Examination Council, General Certificate in Education’. Apart from the heading, all the contents therein are blank. The second one is the School Testimonial of Ede Muslim Grammar School and the contents there too are not legible.
“My Lords, before the INEC can be discharged, we must be clear that the appropriate documents have been produced,” Fagbemi stressed.
When called by the tribunal for his reaction, Counsel to INEC, Paul Ananaba, SAN, said, since the documents had been produced, he couldn’t comment much on them because he was not a witness in the matter.
“INEC has produced the documents. I can’t answer if legible or not,” Ananaba said.
Adeleke counsel, Onyeachi Ikpeazu (SAN) commented saying, “the testimonial is legible enough. I can read the content.
Also speaking on the issue, Alex Izinyon, counsel to the Peoples Democratic Party, said the testimonial is legible, adding, “the GCE result is very legible but the body is faint. The observation is rectifiable. The plaintiff witness that they intend to use the documents for can come in and INEC if they have a clearer copies of the documents can bring them later.”
Responding again, Fagbemi said, “My Lord, if somebody writes exams, his scores will be in the result, in this one being produced here, those scores are not showing. Before your Lordships adjourned the last time we came here, we had the understanding that somebody will produce a clean and legible documents and that was why the respondents pleaded that we come today (Thursday).
While ruling on the arguments of the counsel, the tribunal Chairman, Justice Tertsea Kume, said, “INEC has produced the documents asked for. But plaintiffs’ counsel observed that on the GCE result the name of the person that took the examination was missing. The scores recorded were not also contained. Also, the address on the school testimonial was not legible enough.”
Ananaba said INEC would bring the original copies submitted to it. He also suggested that INEC in Abuja could be contacted and screenshot of the document could be obtained within one hour.
The tribunal then stood down the matter for one hour and half for the INEC counsel to get the screenshot of the documents.
Returning from the break, counsel for INEC told the tribunal that despite the efforts made, his client could not get a clearer certificate of Adeleke in his custody, saying the only way forward was to bring the original file containing the documents in question.
He then appealed that if the petitioners have a better copy, they should produce it and it will not be objected to.
Counsel for Adeleke and PDP, respectively said, the “INEC can’t give what they don’t have” saying what they produce was the best they had.
In line with his arguments, the tribunal asked the INEC counsel to choose a date not beyond Saturday, December 3 for the production of the file containing the documents or a clearer documents in question.
The panel again was forced to stand down for another 10 minutes for the INEC counsel to make contact and give a date that the clearer documents would be produced.
When the panel returned, the INEC counsel then applied for adjournment till Wednesday, December 7, to bring the documents in question to which he said he was ready to lose one day of his day during defence.
While ruling, the tribunal described the application for adjournment as unfortunate, saying “the case is reluctantly adjourned to 3rd December, 2022 for the production of eligible copies of the pages of the said documents, failing which coercive power of this tribunal will be invoked.”
