From Yakubu Busari,Jos
The National /State Houses of Assembly Election Tribunal on Monday in Plateau State on Monday ordered the resident Electoral Commissioner ,REC, in the State to appear before it with three documents of Gagdi ward results for the 18th March, 2023 election.
Justice Bello Muhammed Tukur gave the order based on an application brought before the trial tribunal by Prof. Daniel Davou Dabi, who held that results of inconclusive polling units results from Kanam Local Government Council of Plateau state, should be tendered.
The petitioner raised alarm that the returning officer failed to declare a winner owning to numerous problem of mutilated papers, irregularities and over voting exercise that took place .
Earlier, during the proceedings on Monday, the Chairman of the Tribunal ordered INEC and the petitioners to go to the headquarters of INEC in search of the missing documents which the election umpire failed to produced while on the subpoena to tender the following documents of P23 items 1,4,7 as exhibits P23 .
According to the tribunal chairman ,there are documents which was used in the declaration of Dr Jimmam Lar by the second returning officer, so where is the confusion over the winner of House of Assembly election held in Plateau Central senatorial district of the state ?
The documents available and marked as exhibits P8c,P8d were tendered through Pw1 but the forms EC8A1 ,EC8G where the first respondent’s ,INEC, is concerned are documents in existence 1,4,5,6,7 that are marked as exhibits P22 respectively .
He said, “The exhibits we are talking about are the current documents signed by Prof Daniel Davou Dabi and which are listed in the subpoena, as he failed to declare winner because some agents refused to sign the result sheets owning the fraud in the polling units ”
The petitioner’s Counsel, Philip Nyilini disclosed that it was confirmed that PW1 submitted the documents and INEC assured them of producing more documents but today, Monday ,the documents are said to be missing .
Having failed to produced the said documents. The Judge ordered the REC to produced the documents within 12 working hours or risked going to jail.
The Chairman of the Election Tribunal ordered INEC to produced results of the Plateau Central Senatorial district conducted by Prof.Daniel Davou Dabi which the said documents were still in the custody of the INEC .
According to the petitioner’s counsel Nyilini , his application is predicted on Section 69 of the Electoral Act which stayes that the INEC Resident Commissioner as the chief custodian of the documents should be liable since the officer that was delegated to produce the vital documents are unwilling to do so, contrary to the submission of the respondents in exhibits P32 in EC8E1 as paragraph 2 .
Nyilini explained further that the outstanding documents are very paramount to the proceedings.
Counsel to the first respondent, Mr Sani Rabiu told the trial tribunal that the said documents 4&7 are available in INEC custody which the representative of REC presented and court admitted and marked as exhibits .
The petitioners stressed that they needed the documents to speak to the tribunal to help their case in the proceedings where the respondent sought for 48 hours adjournment to enable them process the documents .
Sani assured the tribunal of producing the documents listed but when the court stood down from 9am to 1pm to enable the petitioners and counsel to the first respondent’s to go to INEC office, the counsel to INEC said the REC was not in town and the officer in charge of ICT was no where to be found .
