The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has closed its defence at the Edo State Elections Tribunal sitting in Benin City without calling a single witness but succeeded in resubmitting its certified and verified documents which the petitioner had earlier submitted to the court.
Counsel to the commission, Onyinye Anumonye, told the court at its resumed sitting on Monday, after two consecutive adjournments at the commission’s instance, that as the first respondent it has established its defence to the petition filed by the PDP and its governorship candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who are contesting its role in the 2016 Edo State governorship election.
He said it would, therefore, amount to a waste of the tribunal’s precious time to call witnesses who will only come to repeat the statements already contained in the copious documents the commission has submitted to the court.
According to Anumonye, INEC is confident that with the documents the commission submitted to the court, it has proved and established its defence to the petition based on its earlier cross-examinations of the petitioner’s witnesses.
The tribunal had begun sitting by receiving from the commission and admitting in evidence, the same copies of the INEC forms EC8B and EC8C used in the 2016 Edo State governorship election earlier submitted by the petitioners for all of the 18 local government areas in the state.
The forms presented to the court by INEC counsel except in one or two instances met without any objection by counsel to the PDP and its governorship candidate, Roland Otaru, SAN even as they were labelled exhibits by chairman of the three member tribunal, Justice Ahmed Badamasi.
Thereafter, the INEC counsel also sought to present a document which he acknowledged was out of the schedule of proceeding titled,
‘Supplement to the 2015 guidelines and regulations for the conduct of the elections’.
However inspite of Otaru, SAN’s objection to the admission of the ‘supplement’ on the grounds that it should have been presented by a witness from a witness box, the tribunal admitted the document in evidence and labelled it as an exhibit.