By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

The Bayelsa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja, on Monday, reserved its judgement on the petition the All Progressives Congress, APC, and its candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva, filed to nullify the election of Governor Douye Diri.

The Justice Adekunle Adeleye-led three-member tribunal okayed the matter for judgement after all the parties adopted their final briefs of argument.

READ ALSO: Again, Wike under attack over political comments, difference with Odili

While the petitioners, through their lead counsel, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu, SAN, prayed the tribunal to invalidate the Certificate of Return that was issued to Governor Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, all the respondents urged the panel to dismiss the petition for want of merit.

Specifically, Dr. Ikpeazu, SAN, maintained that it was wrongful exclusion of results by INEC that led to the emergence of Diri as the winner of the gubernatorial poll.

He contended that the electoral body did not debunk the allegation of wrongful exclusion of results since it did not call the state election result collation officer to testify before the tribunal.

Consequently, counsel to the petitioners urged the tribunal to objectively decide the petition on the strength of evidence adduced by his clients because the electoral body did not provide any witness in the matter.

However, while adopting his final address, Governor Diri, through his lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, argued that the petitioners failed to establish why the outcome of the election should be voided.

He described the petition as baseless, frivolous, vexatious and grossly lacking in merit, insisting that the petitioners were unable to discharge the burden of proof that was placed on them by the law.

Besides, Uche, SAN, noted that both Sylva and the APC did not call any collation officer who participated in the election to prove their allegation that some results were excluded during the collation process.

He further drew the attention of the tribunal to the fact that the petitioners did not tender the Voters Register, the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines, or INEC forms EC8A that were used in the conduct of the election, to establish their case.

According to Uche, SAN, though the petitioner himself, Sylva, desposed to a witness statement on oath, he, however, refused to give evidence before the tribunal to substantiate his allegations.

Uche equally urged the tribunal to discountenance the evidence of a former Police Commissioner in the State who appeared as a witness in the matter.

He argued that the police officer had in his testimony before the tribunal, admitted that he previously had issues with Governor Diri over a Prado Jeep that was retrieved from him.

Similarly, INEC, represented by Chief Charles Edosomwan, SAN, and Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, represented by Tayo Oyetibo, SAN, also urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition.

After it had listened to all the lawyers, the tribunal Chairman announced that the judgement date would be communicated to the parties.

It will be recalled that INEC had declared that Governor Diri of the PDP garnered a total of 175, 196 votes to defeat his closest rival, Sylva of the APC who polled 110, 108 votes.

However, dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, Sylva, who served as governor of the state from 2008 to 2012, and the immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, approached the tribunal, alleging that results of the election in three Local Government Areas, LGAs, were wrongly excluded by INEC.

He told the tribunal that whereas the election was held in Southern Ijaw, Ogbia, and Nembe LGAs, however, the electoral body voided polling unit results that were forwarded for collation.

Sylva insisted that contrary to INEC’s position that the election did not hold in the affected LGAs, its officials supervised the election and sent results from the various polling units to the collation center.

According to him, had it been that results from the three LGAs, which he described as his strongholds, were included, he would have won the gubernatorial contest.