The plateau state election petition tribunal has adjourned to Thursday May 23, 2019, the case in a petition filed by Jonathan Dabo of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, against the election of Haruna Maitala of the All Progressive Congress, APC, as representative of the Jos North-Bassa federal constituency in the house of representatives.

At Tuesday’s sitting, which was a pre trial hearing, counsel to the APC candidate sought to submit additional authorities to support the case of his client.

This was however objected to by counsel to PDP’S Jonathan Dabo who said that the counsel to the APC and its candidate was attempting to spring a surprise since the additional material was not pleaded in the originating affidavit.

He also told the tribunal that both the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC knowing that the case must be concluded within a time frame, were trying to frustrate the trial because as at Tuesday INEC had not filed any documents as a respondent in the case neither have the APC and its candidate completed their filing, knowing full well that the case must be completed within ninety days.

The chairman of the tribunal NT Nzeogwu frowned at the delay and gave a short adjournment to Thursday May 23 to continue with pre-trail hearing and promised that the case would be concluded within the time stipulated by the electoral act.

The PDP candidate Jonathan Dabo had petitioned the tribunal over the alleged manipulation of the electoral process by INEC, which he accused of declaring the election inclusive without any cogent reasons and going ahead to conduct a supplementary election based on which it upturned his victory and declared the APC candidate the winner.

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Election Tribunal: Jos North/Bassa House of reps tussle between Jonathan Dabo (PDP) and Maitala (APC) hots up