Ahmed Badamasi led three-man Edo State Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Benin Wednesday fixed January 9, 2017 for the commencement of the trial of the substantive petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate, Osagie Ize- Iyamu against the declaration of Godwin Obaseki as the winner of the last September 28, 2016 Edo State governorship election.
BusinessDay reports that the tribunal also fixed the commencement of the pre-trial of the petition for next Monday.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had last September 29, 2016 declared Godwin Obaseki, the All Progressives Congress candidate the winner of the election with 319,483 votes to defeat his closest PDP candidate, Osagie Ize- Iyamu with 253,173 votes.
Dissatisfied with INEC declaration, PDP and its candidate, Osagie Ize- Iyamu petitioned the tribunal urging it to declare him winner of the election as the scorer of the lawful majority votes cast during the election.
The court pronouncement that the hearing of the substantive petitions would commencement next month was necessitated by the decision of counsel to both parties to collapse all the pending applications slated for hearing yesterday to the substantive petition.
According to the tribunal, the court has not only welcome the counsel submission to collapse the pending applications to the substantive petitions but also approve that all petitions should now be taken along with the substantive petitions.
Earlier counsel to PDP and its candidate, Kehinde Pinheiro (SAN), Wole Olanipekun, counsel to Governor, Godwin Obaseki and Lateef Fagbemi counsel to APC in their separate submissions told the court that they unanimously agreed to collapse all pending applications scheduled for hearing yesterday to the substantive petition due for commencement on January 9, 2017 while the pre-trial would commence December 12, 2015.
The counsel said the decision was to save time as well as to avoid unnecessary technicalities during the trial.
Kehinde Pinheiro averred that both counsel met, discussed and engaged each others as well as agreed that all the applications shall abide the hearing of the petition and the application shall be taken during the final addresses by the respective parties.
‘’We further agreed that pre-trial shall commence next Monday while proper trial start earnest in January 2017’’, he said.
Also in their separate submissions, Wole Olanipekun and Lateef Fagbemi confirmed the resolution and noted that the decision was taken because of the forthcoming Christmas and New Year holidays respectively.
Meanwhile following complaints of alleged deliberate attempt by respondents to frustrate the inspection of all the electoral materials used during the election raised by counsel to PDP, the tribunal ruled that its orders still stand.
‘’Our earlier order on the inspection of electoral materials still stands and any party who feel that the order is not adhere to should come by way of application to that effect and show those areas that were not comply with’’, he stated.
The complaints of the PDP counsel resulted to heated argument at the tribunal by counsel of both parties.
