Alex Enumah in Abuja 

The Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal has affirmed the election of Senator Monday Okpebholo as Governor of Edo State.

The tribunal, in a unanimous judgment on Wednesday held that the petitioners failed to prove their case of over-voting in 320 polling units across the 18 local government areas of the state where election held.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the September 21 governorship election.

The electoral umpire had based its action on the grounds that Okpebholo scored the majority of votes cast at the poll.

Dissatisfied, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate, Asue Ighodalo, had dragged the governor to the tribunal seeking to nullify the election on grounds of non-compliance with the electoral laws as well as over-voting.

However, delivering judgment on Wednesday in the petition, the three-member tribunal led by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, held that the petitioners failed to prove their claim of non-compliance.

Justice Kpochi, who delivered the lead judgment, observed that the claims of non-compliance was not proved because relevant witnesses were not called to give evidence of the alleged act of non-compliance.

In proving its claim of alleged over-voting, PDP and Ighodalo had called 19 witnesses including collation agents and a research expert and tendered polling units’ results, collation results, the BVAS and other sensitive materials.

“Failure to call polling unit agents, ward agents or other registered voters that witnessed the alleged over-voting,” Kpochi held.

Besides, the court further faulted the petitioners for not speaking to the documents, “since documents does not speak for themselves”, adding that: “Where no evidence is made, it is not the duty of the tribunal to scrutinize the documents for the petitioners.”

According to the tribunal, “We are restrained from looking (open them and look at it).”

Explaining further, the tribunal held that to prove allegations of over-voting, a petition must tender three valid documents which are: Voter’s Register, BVAS and the form EC8A (polling unit result).

“How do you prove over-voting if you don’t know the number of the registered voters? The chairman asked.

He subsequently dismissed the claim of alleged non-compliance and over-voting made by the petitioners.

Details later…

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