INEC Tenders David Mbah Certificate In Court

Hearing continued on Tuesday in the petition filed before the Enugu State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal by the Labour Party, LP, and its candidate, Barr Chijioke Edeoga against the election of Barr Peter Mbah of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP.

First to mount the witness box was a staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Friday Emmanuel, who appeared as a subpoenaed witness.

Emmanuel, Petitioner’s Witness 3, works at the legal drafting and clearance department, INEC headquarters, Abuja.Edeoga’s counsels were led by V Azinge, SAN, while PDP’s legal team was led by Wole Olanipekun, SAN.

Mbah’s legal team was led by Alex Iziyon, SAN, while Humphrey Okoli represented the INEC.

Before the INEC staff proceeded to give his evidence, legal fireworks ensued between the petitioners and the respondents.Two of the respondents, Mbah and the PDP objected to his evidence on the grounds that a witness must first swore to a witness deposition on oath.

They cited several authorities to back up their argument.

However, the petitioners’ counsels, led by Azinge equally cited plethora of cases which they said justified the evidence of the subpoenaed witness.

The Court then held that a ruling on the objections raised by the respondents would be considered alongside the judgement.The INEC staff then produced to the Tribunal Barr Peter Mbah’s certificates which he submitted alongside his governorship nomination form.

After tendering his subpoena, Emmanuel then told the Tribunal: “the documents with me is Form EC9 and all the attachments, for the PDP governorship candidate, Enugu State.”

The LP counsel applied to tender the documents as exhibits.Both the PDP and Mbah objected to the admissibility of the documents. They, however, reserved their objections for the written address.

The INEC counsel did not object to the tendering of the documents.

The certificates Mbah submitted to the INEC were then admitted in evidence by the Tribunal.