Wale Yusuf
29 June 2008
AS the Osun State Election Petitions Tribunal led by Justice Thomas Naron, reserved judgment in the petition filed by the Action Congress (AC) governorship candidate in the state, Engineer Rauf Aregbesola, after the adoption of final written addresses by counsel to the parties, a fresh application, seeking leave to bring in additional documents by the petitioners in proving the case against the declaration of Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola, has been brought before the panel.
Aregbesola pleaded with the tribunal to allow him tender Certified True Copies (CTC) of form EC8D and EC8E being the overall result of the April 14, 2007 governorship poll in Osun State as part of the evidence to be considered by the tribunal in deciding the petition.
Leading counsel to the Action Congress (AC), Chief Kola Awodein (SAN, submitted that the documents were part of the documentary evidence listed and approved by the tribunal to be tendered from the bar by consent of both the parties who he recalled had earlier given their consent. Non-tendering of the documents before the petitioners closed their case, the SAN submitted further, was a mistake of concern, saying that the documents sought to be tendered, being the contents of the election result as announced by INEC, had been admitted by parties in their pleadings.
Awodein stated that failure to tender the documents during the prosecution of the case was a mistaken view of counsel, saying that the documents is very germane to the petition in helping the tribunal to arrive at a fair conclusion. Reacting to the reply of the respondents" counsel in their counter-affidavit, the AC counsel argued that the application was not to overreach the respondents", as the application had been filed before any of the respondents in the petition filed the final written address, saying that they (respondents) have the opportunity of referring to the documents if eventually admitted.
Respondents Counsel insisted that the documents were not tendered during the prosecution of the case against the respondents, because the non-tendering of the documents was discovered by the petitioners while preparing to compile their final addresses. Awodein referred to the counter-affidavit of the respondents where it was alleged that the non-tendering of the documents during the trial was a deliberate decision of the petitioners" counsel but not a mistake as he denied the allegation and insisted that the Supreme Court has held that if there is a lapse on the side of counsel, the client should not be made to suffer for it.
He then prayed the tribunal to grant the application for it is meritorious, adding that in the interest of justice, the tribunal should exercise its discretion in favour of the petitioners. In his reply, Oyinlola's lead counsel, Mr. Yusuff Alli (SAN), argued that the non-tendering of the documents was a deliberate decision, saying that the documents were not certified along with others that had been tendered during the trial instead of the June 4, 2008 date indicated on the CTC of the documents.
Replying on point of law, the AC counsel referred to the argument of Oyinlola's counsel, where he stated that the documents would have negatively affected the cases of the petitioners if tendered at the trial of the petition, asking that "when the respondents knew that it would affect our case, why not allow it to go in". He prayed the tribunal to discountenance the submission of the PDP, INEC and police counsel and prayed the court to grant the application.
The AC counsel argued further that the evidence of the petitioners' witnesses on the violence and the disruption were not challenged.
The tribunal chairman held: "Judgment in this petition is reserved and counsel shall be served with judgment notice".
Be the first to Write a Comment!
Copyright © 2008 Vanguard. All rights reserved. Distributed by AllAfrica Global Media (allAfrica.com). To contact the copyright holder directly for corrections — or for permission to republish or make other authorized use of this material, click here.
AllAfrica aggregates and indexes content from over 125 African news organizations, plus more than 200 other sources, who are responsible for their own reporting and views. Articles and commentaries that identify allAfrica.com as the publisher are produced or commissioned by AllAfrica.
