By Boluwaji Obahopo

The National Assembly and Legislative Houses Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Lokoja, Kogi State has turned into a battleground for two of the most prominent men to have come out of the state. Senator Dino Melaye is pitched in a battle with Senator Smart Adeyemi over the result of the 2015 Kogi West Senatorial Election.

Dino Melaye

Both men have won national renown as activists, Adeyemi having been a former president of the Nigerian Union of Journalists, NUJ and Melaye a student activist.

Melaye had been declared winner of the election conducted March 28 pulling an upset that shocked many who had come to know Senator Adeyemi for his populist views in the Senate and even his populist exposure at home.

The legal exchange between the two contending parties reached a dramatic point last Tuesday after the lawyers of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC were compelled to tender a certified true copy of the APC report on the Kogi West Senatorial primaries in which it was adduced that Melaye did not partake in that primary.

The tender of the CTC was like an elixir to the Adeyemi team who were obviously hoping to nudge the tribunal towards the fact that only democratically elected candidates of the parties can be presented by political parties as candidates.

But getting the Tribunal to accept the documents was not an easy thing as the Melaye team stood its ground and produced every legal weapon to stop the production of the evidence.

At the commencement of the hearing that day, Adeyemi’s counsel, Kayode Olatoke SAN, had prayed the tribunal to allow him tender as exhibits the documents following a subpoena served on the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state to produce the documents.

*Sen. Smart Adeyemi

Olatoke argued that the documents were brought in accordance with Section 218 of the Evidence Act, saying that admitting them would not breach the section as it met the three conditions for admissibility in court, which include whether they were pleaded, whether they were relevant and whether they were admissible.

While claiming that the documents were admissible by virtue of Section 83 of the Evidence Act, Olatoke urged the tribunal to admit them as exhibits to be used in prosecuting the petition.

However counsel to Melaye, F.C. Ani objected to the admissibility of the documents, saying that the INEC officials that brought the documents could not give evidence on them.

He was joined by the APC counsel, Ayotunde Ogunleye who noted that the court should be bound by the prayers of parties in a suit, claiming that the arguments and the authorities cited by Olatoke were not relevant to the petition, as the witnesses were not competent to give evidence on the documents and urged the tribunal to reject the documents and mark them as rejected.

The chairman of the tribunal, Justice Akon Ikpeme said the tribunal accepted the document based on the rulings of the Appeal and Supreme Courts on such matters.

According to the tribunal, the rule of admissibility did not need calling the makers of the documents to give evidence on such documents, saying Section 183(1) of the Evidence Act made the documents admissible.

Besides, the tribunal also accepted recounts of disputed votes in 21 polling units.

What the tribunal does with the admitted Certified True Copy of the APC report on the Kogi West Senatorial Primary could in the end prove decisive.