Osun State Election Petition Tribunal hearing the suit filed by Governor Adegboyega Oyetola against the declaration of Ademola Adeleke as Governor-elect will today, receive documentary evidence against the result declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
At the sitting of the tribunal yesterday, the chairman, Justice Tertsea Kume, adjourned the case till today for the respondents to cross-check the list of documents to be tendered, with a view to making the tendering seamless for the petitioners.
Earlier at the hearing, counsel to Oyetola and APC, Chief Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) had informed the court of his intention to tender some documentary evidence to prove the alleged non-compliance with the Electoral Act by INEC.
Counsel to the PDP, Alex Izinyon (SAN) objected to the tendering of the documents on the ground that it ran afoul of Paragraph 3 of the pre-hearing report which indicated that list of witnesses should be filed 24 hours to the hearing.
He argued that since the petitioners had allegedly disobeyed the tribunal order, the petition should be dismissed as the consequences of the action.
Counsel to INEC, Prof Paul Ananaba (SAN) also argued along the same line and said that the attempt to tender the documents violated the tribunal order and the petition should be dismissed.
Counsel to Adeleke, Onyeachi Ikpeazu (SAN), however, toed a different line and argued that, since the petitioners were ready to tender the documents, they ought to have allowed the respondents to have access to it earlier and cross check, so that the tendering would be seamless.
Subsequently, tribunal Chairman asked the parties to discuss and agree on how the documents would be tendered that would make it seamless, to which the parties agreed.
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