Five political parties and their candidates, have dragged
Godwin Obaseki, the re-elected governor of Edo state to the Election Tribunal,
challenging his declaration as the winner of the 19 September poll.
But for now, the bailiff has not been able to personally
serve Obaseki with the petitions.
The Secretary of the tribunal, Mr Sunday Martins, confirmed
this to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Benin on Monday.
Martin’s said that the 21-day window period for the
submission of petitions ended on Saturday.
He said that the governor “must be served personally because
it is an originating process”.
The political parties are the Action Peoples Party (APP),
Action Alliance (AA), Allied Peoples’ Movement APM, the New Nigeria Peoples
Party, NPP and the Action Democratic Party (ADP).
The candidates are: Mr Ukonga Frank of APM, Mr. Agol Ebun,
NPP and Iboi Emmanuel ADP.
Others are Amos Osalumese Areloegbe of the APP and Obhafuoso
Paul of the Action Alliance.
All the petitioners joined Obaseki, the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as
respondents.
The petition by ADP and its candidate had the governor, PDP,
INEC and Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the All Progressives Congress as defendants.
Candidates of APP and AA are challenging their unlawful exclusion
from the ballot papers by INEC, after having been validly-nominated by their
parties, in line with the Electoral Act.
They were praying the tribunal to nullify the election and
order a fresh poll to be conducted within 90 days.
They demanded that validly-nominated candidates should be
included in the new ballot papers.
Candidates of APM and NNPP were challenging the validity of
Forms EC9 and CF001, reportedly submitted by Obaseki in respect of the 2020 and
2016 governorship polls in the state.
Also, ADP and Emmanuel were asking the tribunal to look at
the list of Vice Chancellors (VC) of the University of Ibadan (UI), from 1947
to date, E-newspaper publication that announced the death of Prof. Tekena
Tamuno, among other documents.
Emmanuel alleged in his petition that Tamuno, who was the VC
of UI, from December 1975 till November 1979, could not have signed the
certificate Obaseki allegedly presented to the APC for screening.
He also alleged that the purported university degree, which
Obaseki claimed was issued by UI, had no date on it.
The ADP candidate therefore argued that Obaseki was not
qualified to run for the poll, adding that votes credited to him were null and
void and of no effect and value.
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