Senator Godswill Akpabio
One week ago, Dr Attai had tendered the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the disputed Akwa Ibom North West senatorial district election results at the tribunal led by Justice Goddy in Dutsen Alhaji Abuja to conclude his testimony as a witness in the ongoing trial of the March 28, 2015 National Assembly election.
Dr Attai had sought the leave of the court to tender the Atlas of Constituency of the three senatorial districts in the state as produced by the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) which was relied upon for nomination and election into the senatorial seat.
This was opposed to by Akpabio, INEC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Counsel to Akpabio, Paul Usoro (SAN) however objected to the document being tendered, insisting that the full document and not an extract of it ought to have been tendered. He also argued that the witness is not the maker of the document.
Counsel to 2nd respondent, S. N. Mbaezue also objected to its saying the whole document should have been tendered to properly guide the tribunal on how the delineation was done.
Also speaking, counsel to the 3rd respondent, Adekunle Adesanya (SAN) said Section 71 of the 1999 constitution (as amended) does not talk about an extract of a document but the whole document. He asserted that it will be unsafe for the tribunal to rely on the document as issued. The trio prayed the tribunal to discountenance the document sought to be tendered to the tribunal through the state party chairman.
Responding, counsel to the petitioner, Chief Assam Assam (SAN) told the tribunal that "admissibility is a point of law. To object, the objection must be based on law. None of the respondents’ counsels refereed to any law backing their opposition to the admissibility of the document."
The tribunal went on break and reconvened at about 1.55pm.
Ruling on the matter, Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Anunihu said the three basic facts were that a document sought to be tendered must be pleaded, relevant and admissible.
He declared that though the three page document is a Certified True Copy of the Nigerian Atlas of Electoral Constituency, a Publication of the Independent National Electoral Commission, with page 24 showing a map of the three senatorial districts and page 25 showing the Local Government Areas and number of Registered Voters therein, with date of certification, the disputed document has not met the relevant criteria as stipulated by law as it only states the senatorial districts and not candidates nominated for the constituencies thus the document stands rejected.
The case was adjourned to Thursday, August 13, 2015 for continuation of trial.
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