By Eze Juliet
August 16, 2023
It was a serious legal battle today between the Labour Party, its candidate, Chijioke Edeoga and the respondents, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Peter Mbah and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the Enugu State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Enugu.
The tribunal had earlier fixed today, 16 August, 2023 for the adoption of the final written addresses of all the parties.
On resumption of the sitting, the Labour Party lead counsel, Adegboyega Awomolo (SAN) had made an oral application seeking for the tribunal to grant him time to amend some typo errors in his final written address.
Myriads of objections started raining in from the three respondents when in paragraph 4.33 of the petitioners’ written address, the petitioner had rewritten a statement among other ones which one of them had as “having scored the highest number of votes in the election with at least 25% spread in the 11 local governments in Rivers State, he should be declared a winner” to having scored the highest number of votes in the election with at least 25% spread in the 11 local government Enugu State, he should be declared a winner.
The first respondent argued that this practice is strange in law and should be discountenanced by the tribunal, maintaining that the petitioners had the right to amend their written address within the timeline alloted for parties to file their written addresses and not amending a submission he had intentionally made. He referred the tribunal to the case of Fingesi against INEC (2019) where the Supreme Court had ruled that any amendment should be done within the time given to parties to file their written addresses.
Expressing shock towards the development, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), lead counsel to the second respondent told the tribunal that procedurally, the application shouldn’t be made because they had adopted their final written addresses and replies.
“The injustice we will suffer will be in perpetuity, it can’t be remedied if an order is guaranteed for further replies. In paragraph 4.1 of their final written address, they went to add a fresh issue and we oppose this vehemently.
“An address that contains issues for determination are not formulated retrospectively but prospectively. My Lords, I refer you to the case of Omisore against Aregbesola (2015), Wellington against PDP (2023), the decisions of the Supreme Court is clear on this matter. Therefore, I urge this tribunal to ignore the application,” Olanipekun said.
Meanwhile, after listening to the arguments of both parties, followed by their respective adoption of written addresses, the Chairman of the tribunal M.K Akano said that the ruling on the application would be delivered with the judgment on judgment day which will be communicated to them.
