Edo Election Tribunal: Petition Tribunal Adjourns To December 18 (SEE WHY)
The pre-hearing session of the Edo State Election Petition Tribunal has been postponed to Wednesday, December 18. According to Justice William Kpochi, the chairman of the tribunal, it is anticipated that by that time, the parties would have finished all required preparatory work and decided on a hearing schedule for when the main sitting starts.
Flanked by the other two members of the panel, Justices AB Yusuf and AA Adewole, Justice Kpochi advised the counsels not to engage in superfluous arguments that could escalate to screaming and requested that the congenial atmosphere he met should be continued.
For a successful sitting, he thus urged collaboration from all parties involved, including the political parties, all parties involved in the lawsuit, their supporters, attorneys, security services, and the media.
Speaking further, he said: “I am impressed by the conducive and calm environment I am seeing and going forward, I will want this to continue, I appeal to you all that let us put our eyes on the ball so that we can have serene proceedings.
“You have SANs and very senior lawyers here, nobody is going to shout at you, please don’t also shout at us, if there are areas you feel not comfortable about, please draw our attention to it.”
In response, one of the lead counsels to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Dr. Asue Ighodalo, Ken Mozia (SAN) pledged their commitment to the proceedings as far as other parties would do the same adding: “We will do our best to represent our client and we have admonished his supporters to be civil and not to even be in the court premises and we will do our best to cooperate with the tribunal.”
On his part, lead counsel to the governor, Oyinyechi Ikpazu (SAN) said they were ready to cooperate with the panel and other parties in the suits to ensure a smooth exercise.
“We sue for understanding and work together, we have done cases, we have also done cases against each other so we know ourselves and we will give our maximum cooperation for this”, Okpebholo’s lawyer said.
For the Benin Chapter Chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), Idemudia Osifo while pledging cooperation from the association, expressed concerns about the space where the sitting is taking place saying is too small compared to the number of people present and Justice Kpochi said he had taken note of that.
The candidate of the PDP, Dr. Asue Ighodalo is challenging the September 21, 2024 election victory of Governor Monday Okpebholo.
Others challenging the result of the election are Accord Party (AC), Alligned Peoples Movement (APM), Action Democratic Party (ADP), Zenith Labour Party (ZLP) and the Social Democratic Party (SDP)
The All Progressives Congress (APC) was represented by the State Legal Adviser, Stephen Okoror, along with other party leaders, including the former Speaker of the State House of Assembly, Rt. Hon. Fran Okiye, while Ighodalo and the party’s state chairman, Dr. Tony Aziegbemi, were in court. Okpebholo was not present.
Nevertheless, despite the strict security around the court, there were altercations between suspected party members outside the court while people were sitting inside the courtroom.
Within the court premises, several individuals who were thought to be supporters of certain parties were observed racing in various directions and clashing with other supporters who were wearing white fez caps and T-shirts with claimed inciting inscriptions.
In a viral video clip, supporters of different political parties where seen running in different directions within the court premises.
It was gathered that commotion began where the party supporters came unruly prompting security personnel within the court tried to disperse them.
