BY PETER DURU
MAKURDI—Benue State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Makurdi, Wednesday, commenced trial of the petition filed by the Action Congress of Nigeria, ACN, governorship candidate, Prof. Steve Ugbah challenging the victory of Governor Gabriel Suswam with a sharp disagreement between the ACN Counsel Rotimi Akeredolu, SAN, and the Tribunal chairman, Justice Mumir Ladan.

The trial began with Akeredolu, tendering voters’ registers of the disputed 11 local government councils, including Ukum, Guma, Gwer West, Kwande, Konshisha, and Apa,

Ado, Logo, Katsina- Ala, Okpokwu and Otukpo.

However tempers rose when the voters’ register for Uyam ward 005 in Ukum Local Government Area was rejected by counsel to the 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents, Donald Denwigwe, SAN, Solo Akuma, SAN, PDP and Jibrin Okutepa, SAN, on the grounds that it was not certified by INEC.

The Tribunal Chairman, Justice Ladan accepted the position of the opposing counsel by refusing to admit page 40 of the document in evidence, but this did not go down well with Akeredolu, thus prompting a heated argument between Akeredolu and Justice Ladan.

At a point during the argument, the tribunal was forced to stand down the case for a few minutes.

Akeredolu however, apologised profusely for his action, explaining that he misunderstood the Chairman initially when the tribunal resumed.

“I thought I heard the tribunal say the whole document was rejected. When we went in, I was made to understand that it was only a page and not the whole document that was rejected,” he said.

In his response, the Tribunal Chairman accepted the apology, stressing he was interested in making progress with the matter, saying that the tribunal would henceforth, sit from 9am till 12 midnight daily except Sundays, hence, he advised the parties to prepare for task ahead.