Tribunal to deliver judgment on Cross River guber poll on Tuesday

The Cross River State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal is set to deliver judgment in a petition filed by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Prof. Sandy Onor against the victory of Governor Bassey Otu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The Secretary of the tribunal, Akawu Bambu who disclosed this in a statement in Calabar on Sunday, said the suit challenging Otu’s victory was jointly filed by Onor and the PDP against the APC and INEC after Otu was declared winner of the March 28 election after polling 258,619 votes agaibst the PDP candidate who scored 179, 636 votes.

Bambu stated that judgment in the case will be delivered on Tuesday.

Bambu noted that both the petitioners and the defendants had, through their counsels, to J. Y. Musa (SAN) and Prof. Mike Ozekhone (SAN) respectively, had presented their written addresses and were adopted by a three- man tribunal.

“In the final written address, J.Y Musa (SAN), told the court that evidences extracted under cross-examination of the respondents goes to fortify the case of their petition and also also confirm the falsity of the evidence presented by the second and third respondents Governor Bassey Otu and Peter Odey,” the tribunal Secretary said in the statement.

He added that Onor had closed his case after calling his witnesses while Otu also closed his case and called 10 witnesss.

Read also: Tribunal dismisses ex-Gov Ayade’s petition on Cross River North election

The tribunal Chairman, Justice Oken Inneh, according to Bambu, had then reserved judgment following the adoption of written addresses by both parties on August 13.

In his submission, Musa had stated that the PDP case was not about allegations of forgery against any of the respondents and so all the authorities they cited to the effect that they needed to call witnesses from institutions are non-sequitor, rather their case is that the second and third respondents lied on oath.

He insisted that the second and third respondents (Otu and Odey) brought documents to show that they forged documents.

“I, therefore, urge the tribunal to declare the votes of the second and third respondents wasted because they were not qualified to stand for the election and declare the petitioners winner of the elections,” he had stated.

On his part, Ozekhone had urged the court to dismiss the petition “for being frivolous, unmeritorious, gold-digging, distracting and for constituting an abuse of the court process.”

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