Tribunal reserves judgement on Plateau guber petition

The Plateau State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Jos, has reserved judgement on the petition filed by the governorship candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Sen. Jeremiah Useni, in the March 2019 governorship election in the state.

Useni filled a petition challenging the re-election of Governor Simon Lalong of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), claiming that there were votes cancellation in the PDP-dominated areas and that Lalong was not qualified to contest the election.

The tribunal adopted all written addresses from PDP, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ahead of the judgement.

Gen. Useni, through his lead counsel, Mike Ozekhome (SAN), said that Lalong was not qualified to contest the election in view of the conflicting names Sule Simon and Sule Lalong Simon contained in his certificate which he filed to contest the election.

“The main issue in the petition is who contested the election. Form CF001 is INEC’s form which is prescribed in section 183 of the Electoral Act which also gives INEC powers. That form itself is a solemn oath; the latest case of the Supreme Court of Modibo described it as a certificate.

“When you swear to it, it shows that everything you are swearing is correct and true. The only certificate which is supposed to be a qualifying certificate of Governor Lalong bears the name Sule Simon, meaning in his change of name, he never refers to Sule Simon or that he never changed his name because on the form given to him, he was asked whether he had ever changed his name and he put NIL which means no.

“In his affidavit of change of name from Sule Simon to Sule Simon Lalong he never referred to Sule and we have a crisis of three names which he ought to have come to the tribunal to explain or call people from WAEC to come and testify or swear to an affidavit Sule Simon Lalong which he has in his qualification.

“This is a false declaration of fundamental nature which has affected his qualification to contest that election; so Lalong was never qualified to contest the governorship election and going by Supreme Court judgements, it means that the person who came second in the election ought to take possession of the seat.”

Meanwhile, Governor Simon Lalong, through his counsel, Garba Pwol (SAN), objected to the claims and insisted that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had proved that Lalong judiciously won the election based on his popularity and genuine votes scored during the election.

Pwol noted that the alleged cancellation of votes and crisis of certificate was the imagination of the petitioner, saying they remained confident of their victory which had been validated by INEC.

“The challenges we had was the people who did the interpretation from Hausa to English, some of them where not competent, as far as we are concern, that will not affect the merit of the case, we have confidence in our victory as confirmed by INEC at all levels of the litigation.”

Chairman of the three-member tribunal, Justice Halima Salman, adjorned sitting, and said the tribunal would resume when judgement was ready.