Tribunal reserves judgement on Plateau guber petition – TheNigerialawyer

The Plateau State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal
sitting in Jos, has reserved judgement on the petition filed by the
governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Sen.
Jeremiah Useni, in the March 2019 governorship election in the
state.

Useni filled a petition challenging the re-election of Governor
Simon Lalong of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC),
claiming that there were votes cancellation in the PDP-dominated
areas and that Lalong was not qualified to contest the
election.

The tribunal adopted all written addresses from PDP, the All
Progressives Congress (APC) and Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) ahead of the judgement.

Gen. Useni, through his lead counsel, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), said
that Lalong was not qualified to contest the election in view of
the conflicting names Sule Simon and Sule Lalong Simon contained in
his certificate which he filed to contest the election.

“The main issue in the petition is who contested the election.
Form CF001 is INEC’s form which is prescribed in section 183 of the
Electoral Act which also gives INEC powers. That form itself is a
solemn oath; the latest case of the Supreme Court of Modibo
described it as a certificate.

“When you swear to it, it shows that everything you are swearing
is correct and true. The only certificate which is supposed to be a
qualifying certificate of Governor Lalong bears the name Sule
Simon, meaning in his change of name, he never refers to Sule Simon
or that he never changed his name because on the form given to him,
he was asked whether he had ever changed his name and he put NIL
which means no.

“In his affidavit of change of name from Sule Simon to Sule
Simon Lalong he never referred to Sule and we have a crisis of
three names which he ought to have come to the tribunal to explain
or call people from WAEC to come and testify or swear to an
affidavit Sule Simon Lalong which he has in his qualification.

“This is a false declaration of fundamental nature which has
affected his qualification to contest that election; so Lalong was
never qualified to contest the governorship election and going by
Supreme Court judgements, it means that the person who came second
in the election ought to take possession of the seat.”

Meanwhile, Governor Simon Lalong, through his counsel, Garba
Pwol (SAN), objected to the claims and insisted that the
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had proved that
Lalong judiciously won the election based on his popularity and
genuine votes scored during the election.

Pwol noted that the alleged cancellation of votes and crisis of
certificate was the imagination of the petitioner, saying they
remained confident of their victory which had been validated by
INEC.

“The challenges we had was the people who did the interpretation
from Hausa to English, some of them where not competent, as far as
we are concern, that will not affect the merit of the case, we have
confidence in our victory as confirmed by INEC at all levels of the
litigation.”

Chairman of the three-member tribunal, Justice Halima Salman,
adjorned sitting, and said the tribunal would resume when judgement
was ready.

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