CHAMBERLAIN ODEY, JOS – The Plateau State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal is to begin pre-hearing sitting tomorrow at the West of Mines High Court.

This is coming just a day to the inauguration ceremony of Governor Simon Lalong for another term.

The pre-session hearing notice indicates that activities at the tribunal will begin at 8:30am, as all the parties with petitions before the Tribunal and the respondents are expected to turn up and behold in the worthiness or otherwise of the claims, and show cause why their petitions should be entertained or set aside.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and its gubernatorial candidate, Senator Jeremiah Useni had rejected the last gubernatorial election result as not reflective of the voters’ preference and decision and therefore proceeded to the election tribunal pleading electoral fraud.

The PDP and Useni are praying the tribunal to set aside the purported victory of the APC and its candidate, Governor Lalong and declare the PDP and its candidate winner.

The leader of the PDP legal team, Chief Sunny Gabriel Odey, had over the weekend briefed a caucus of the state PDP led by its acting chairman, Hon Chris Hassan, on the efforts made so far by the legal team at the tribunal, and the team’s readiness to sustain legal fireworks once hostilities begin at the tribunal.

Earlier, Chief SG Odey, in a message underpinned as “no retreat, no surrender”, said “the PDP legal team gives assurances that the gubernatorial election petition alongside the legislative houses petitions are firmly rooted in the tribunal, and are shielded from any prospects of partisanship and factionalisation within the party”.

Odey also assured ahead of opening of legal tackles at the tribunal that the “lawyers remain focused and committed to professionalism so as to achieve result-oriented outcomes for the benefit of all party men”.

count | 196

Plateau Governorship Election Petition Tribunal Holds Inaugural Sitting today 28th May 2019