By Ola Ajayi
IBADAN—FOR speedy resolution of the election petition matters, a legal luminary, Chief Afe Babalola, SAN, has made a fresh call for the constitution of a five-member Election Arbitration Tribunal.

He said the call became necessary to avoid election petitions which drag for so long. Besides, the setting up of the panel, would eliminate frivolous objections and also put an end to avalanche of criticisms that always trail the membership of election petition panel.

Chief Babalola, who is the President and Chairman of the Governing Council of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (Nigeria) made the call at a seminar on arbitration and other processes  at the Supreme Management Centre, Bodija, Ibadan yesterday.

The seminar was organised by the institute in conjunction with the Oyo State Government.
He suggested that contrary to what operates now when all the members of the panel are appointed by a single person, membership of the panel should be jointly decided by the political parties.

If this is done, he said, all the bickering arising from the election of the panel by a single person would be put paid to.

While declaring the seminar open through his deputy, Governor Adebayo Alao-Akala, said the state judiciary in order to consolidate the gains of Alternative Dispute Resolution, should put in place a functional multi-door court house that would give  room for accessing multiple tracks of dispute resolution that would ease the burden of justice delivery on our judges.

This, he continued, would also put smiles on the faces of disputants through speedy, cost efficient and less acrimonious approaches to dispute resolution.