The LP candidate in the election, Chijioke Edeoga, is challenging the victory of Governor Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party.
The Enugu State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal Wednesday reserved judgment on the petition challenging the election of Governor Peter Mbah in the 18 March governorship election in the state.
The Labour Party (LP) candidate in the election, Chijioke Edeoga, is challenging the victory of Mr Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
The two parties in the matter adopted their final written addresses during Wednesday's hearing.
The Chairperson of the panel, Kudirat Akano, said the date for the final judgment on the petition would be communicated to the parties.
The LP candidate's lawyer, Adegboyega Awomolo, asked the tribunal to grant the reliefs sought by the client to remove Mr Mbah as governor.
Mr Awomolo, SAN, argued that granting the relief to unseat the governor was necessary because it had been proved beyond reasonable doubt that Mr Mbah was at the time of the election not constitutionally qualified to contest having allegedly presented the forged certificate of National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The lawyer faulted the submissions made by Mr Mbah's witnesses, including those of Isa Mohammed, said to be an official of the State Security Service (SSS), who had claimed SSS conducted an investigation into the matter and found the allegation of NYSC certificate forgery against the governor as false.
"All evidence proved that the second respondent (Mbah) did not collect his certificate. There is incontrovertible evidence that on 3 July 2003, the second respondent (Mbah) became the Chief of Staff of Enugu State to (former governor) Chimaroke Nnamani. The third defence witness (Udeh), who claimed that he gave letters to him, said he did not know if he got his certificate," Mr Awomolo said.
"The evidence of the third defence witness (SSS) showed that there is nowhere it is proven that SSS investigated the process. Exhibit 63 showed that he did not come from the SSS authority; it also showed that the second respondent procured his NYSC certificate illegally," he added.
But counsel to Mr Mbah, Wale Olanikpekun and his INEC counterpart, Abdul Mohammed, while separately adopting their addresses, opposed the request by the LP's lawyer, insisting that Mr Mbah did not forge his NYSC certificate.
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They asked the tribunal to dismiss Mr Edeoga's petitions for lacking in merit.
Mild drama
Meanwhile, there was a mild drama when the LP candidate applied for correction of an error in his final address where he had mistakenly asked the tribunal to sack Mr Mbah as the "governor of Rivers State", rather than Enugu State.
However, the three respondents in the petition - Mr Mbah, INEC and PDP - opposed the application, stressing that the correction was an amendment to add further address.
S.T Hon, another counsel to the petitioner, urged the tribunal to overrule the three respondents' submission.
Mr Hon, SAN argued that the Supreme Court had addressed the issue in the case of INEC VS Yusuf, 2020 of the Nigeria Weekly Law Report Part 1714 page 374 to 399.
But, the Chairperson of the panel, Mr Akano, said that the ruling on the argument of the application for the correction of the petitioner's final written address would come alongside the judgment.
