Following an appeal made by the counsel to the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), the Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal sitting in Jos has ordered the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to provide Senator Jeremiah Useni of the PDP all the relevant documents needed to support their petition which was filed before the tribunal.

Viewpoint Nigeria captured that the decision was made by the Chairman of the Tribunal Justice H. A. Saleeman, following the verbal application by Edward Pwajok SAN.

Pwajok informed the tribunal that the electoral commission had breached the orders of the tribunal (which was issued on the 1^st of April, 2019) by failing to provide the petitioners certified Copies of forms, voters registers and all relevant documents for the purpose of maintaining the applicants’ petition.

The Counsel of the Petitioner said it was unfair that after paying INEC a good sum of 4 million naira, the commission  had failed to supply full access to all the requested election documents.

The Chairman of the Tribunal then proceeded to inquire from INEC as to the reason for the delay.

In response, INEC Counsel Clement Onwuenwunor said, “We are working on it, as it is not our intention to deny the Petitioners access to documents validly in our custody”

However, the Chairman of the Tribunal did not accept this excuse, saying that if they had difficulties in providing the documents on time, they were to inform the tribunal in writing.

Meantime, Useni has forwarded to the Tribunal a fresh tranche of nine certified documents. These are: copies of results from various polling units in Mangu, Bokkos and Jos East Local Government Areas.

Respondents’ Counsel has indicated that they will make their objections on the documents in their final address before the judgement of the tribunal.

Tribunal Chairman, Justice Saleeman, received and coded the exhibits accordingly: P44A – P50A.

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Tribunal orders INEC to supply Useni, PDP relevant documents – Plateau Guber