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Plateau Tribunal: Proceeding suffers setback as PLASIEC fails to produce
election material.
By: Dickson Gupiya
April 18, 2019
The Plateau State Independent Electoral Commission (PLASIEC) failed to make available election material for the 2018 local
government election to Hon. Amos Nanloh, who is a first Respondent in the
petition filed by Hon. Ubandoma at the Local Government Election Petition Trial
Tribunal.
Hon. Joshua Ubandoma Laven, the Peoples Democratic Party
(PDP)’s Chairman Candidate for the said election in Langtang North had
challenged its outcome and the declaration of Hon. Amos Nanloh of the All Progressive Congress (APC) as the winner at
the tribunal. Though the lower tribunal
dismissed the petition, the Appellant Tribunal set aside the decision of the lower
tribunal and ordered it to hear the petition on merit.
The hearing has been on-going with the petitioners calling on
about 38 witnesses and closed their case on Tuesday April 16, 2019.
When the case filed was called this morning, Counsel to 1st
Respondent (Nanloh) P.Z. Rimven told the tribunal that the matter was slated
for today for the 1st Respondent to open their defence adding that
they have applied for subpoena which has been issued adding that they have equally
applied for Certified True Copies (CTC) of Polling Units and Ward results for
the said election from 3rd Respondent (PLASIEC) but that the
Commission has not met their request. “We
equally applied for Certified True Copies of polling unit and ward results from
the 3rd Respondent and up to this morning the said results has not
been made available to us due to the inability of the 3rd Respondent
to make it available.” Consequently, Counsel asked for a new date to enable
them have the requested documents from the 3rd Respondent.
Counsel to 2nd Respondent (APC) Sunday S. Obende
did not object to the application.
D.L. Dafer, Counsel to 3rd Respondent confirmed
the receipt of the application letter from the 1st Respondent. He however added that the document were being
sorted out and would be ready in a day or two.
Responding, Counsel to the petitioners, H.N. Ugwuala said he
was not objecting to the application of the 1st Respondent. However, he
added that PLASIEC’s story doesn’t fly stressing that it is unthinkable for
PLASIEC to say that it would take it days to sort out its document in a
petition in which it is a party.
Speaking to African Drum
after Tribunal session, Ugwuala said, it was a story of both parties
indicting each other.
“APC indicting PLASIEC, and PLASIEC indicting APC, so will
follow them as they go. Like I told the tribunal, its unthinkable to say that a
matter you know that is in court over an election you know you conducted and you
are saying you hide the document and you can no longer sort them out in 2 or 3
minutes in a petition you are a party to?. So, the story doesn’t fly.
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