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Kaduna Governor
urges
Tribunal to dismiss CPC’s petition
Newsdiaryonline Thur Sep 29,2011
Today, Governor Patrick Ibrahim Yakowa of Kaduna state
urged the Governorship
Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Kaduna to dismiss the
case brought against him by Haruna Sa’eed Kajuru the candidate
for the Congress for Progressive Change ,CPC in the last
governorship election and uphold his election in the April
polls.
However, the tribunal presided over by Justice Garba Kwajafa has
reserved ruling for a later date just as the written addresses
of the parties in the
case were adopted when
the case came for hearing
. Yakowa’s counsel, Yunus Ustaz Usman who held the brief for the
lead counsel, Joseph Daudu told the tribunal that the
petitioners have failed to prove the case of corrupt practices.
In his argument, “the petitioners themselves have admitted that
they have not proved the issue of corrupt practices, as
contained on page 8, paragraph 4.01 and page 10, paragraph 4.07
of the petitioners written addresses, and we urge your Lordship
to so hold.”
The Senior Advocate of Nigeria averred
that they have decided to ‘amplify’ issues of criminal
allegation and evaluation of dumped documents by the
petitioners, pointing out that “the law is consistent
to the effect that the
documents the party intend to rely on must be demonstrated by
witnesses who must tie each aspect of the documents to the
petitioners aspect of the addresses by the witnesses, but not
from the back.” He noted that having tendered the documents and
a voters register pleaded by the petitioners, the next step for
them was to call INEC’s witnesses .He noted
that in view of their
failure to do so, “we urge your Lordship to dismiss this case.”
Emmanuel Toro (SAN) counsel to the INEC, also told the Tribunal
that the petitioners failed to prove their case beyond
reasonable doubt . He noted that the Commission would rely on
its two written addresses, “and fortify ourselves in respect of
our submission on pages 6 and 7 of our final address that the
entire criminal allegation must be proved by the petitioners.”
He also noted that INEC’s written addresses, “are quite
comprehensive in all the cases, I therefore urge the court to
dismiss the case.”
The petitioner, Haruna Sa’eed Kajuru asked the tribunal to
uphold all his prayers and declare him the actual winner of the
election. His Counsel, Folasade Aofolaju who stood in for
Adeniyi (SAN) disagreed with the submission of the Respondent,
saying that the second respondent (INEC) were the ones to call
the witnesses, but failed to do so.
She noted that the respondents failed to make distinction
between admissibility of public and private documents, adding
that there was no substance in the submission that the
petitioner dumped any documents in the court when in actual
fact, the documents have been admitted as evidence.She asked the
tribunal to uphold the prayers of the petitioners as contained
in the final addresses.
Garba Kwajafa ,the tribunal Chairman, adjourned the case till a
later date for judgement.
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