Barr. Nataaha Akpoti of SDP, on Friday, defeated Yakubu Oseni of APC at Appeal Court on the petition by the latter to upturn the ruling of the Tribunal which granted the request of Natasha Akpoti to use the evidence she gathered from the inspection of electoral materials used for 2019 Kogi Central Senatorial Election.
Akpoti whose prayer to present the evidence in the course of the Tribunal trial was granted on June 1 in a ruling gave by Justice O.A. Chijioke led Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
The three-man bench had stated that, “It will not make any sense if the Petitioners will not be allowed to bring evidence of inspection ordered by the court on 29th March, 2019. The only way they can do this is by filing additional statement for both of suggestion or filing statement of new witnesses or both.
“For the tribunal to deny the Petitioners the right to file for new witnesses consequence upon the inspection ordered by the tribunal will amount to lack of fair hearing”, he held.
Dissatisfied by the ruling, Yakubu Oseni of APC petitioned the Tribunal on the ground that the Tribunal erred in law when it granted the Petitioners Application to file two additional witness statement to the oath of 530 paragraphs, adding that it’s out of time and supplementary to the 44 paragraph petition earlier filed by the petitioner, alleging that by so doing the Tribunal has denied the Appellant of the right to fair hearing and gave undue and unfair advantage to the Petitioners.
However, the appellate courton Friday, dismissed the appeal of Yakubu Oseni of APC and upheld the ruling of the Tribunal granting Natasha to bring the report of the inspection before the Tribunal, the appellate court went further to order Yakubu Oseni of APC to pay the sum of two hundred thousand naira each to Natasha Akpoti and SDP for wasting their times.
The reports of the inspection of INEC materials used for Kogi Central senatorial election which will now be used in the course of the Tribunal judgment showed that there was over voting in Okene, Adavi and Ajaokuta Local government Areas.
