Gov. Ododo and his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), have also told the three-member panel of Justices, headed by Justice Ado Birnin-Kudu, to dismiss the petition in its entirety for being incompetent and lacking in merit.
The trio, through their lawyers – Chief Kanu Agabi, Joseph Daudu and Emmanuel Ukala – stated this position while adopting their final written addresses and presenting their arguments against SDP and Ajaka’s petition.
However, Ajaka’s lawyer, Pius Akubo, have urged the tribunal to discountenance the respondents’ submissions and uphold their petition.
It would be recalled that Ajaka had challenged Ododo’s victory in the Nov. 11, 2023 Kogi governorship poll.
In the petition, INEC, Ododo and APC are listed as 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents respectively.
Upon resumed hearing, INEC’s counsel, Agabi told the court that their final written address was dated and filed on May 2.
He said the commission’s reply on point of law was dated May 8 and filed May 9.
While adopting the processes, the lawyer submitted that the petition lacked merit and was incompetent, urging the court to strike it out or dismiss it.
“It is our humble submission that your work in the determination of this petition is simplified in recent judgments by the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court,” he said.
He also argued that the evidence of the petitioners were grossly insufficient, citing a Supreme Court decision in a case by Tonye Cole against INEC.
“It is to the effect that once the evidence called is grossly insufficient, there is no evidence.
“In that case, the petitioner filed 305 witness depositions but only adopted 40 of them.
“The petitioner, according to the decision, only adopted about 13.1 per cent of the witness depositions.
“In this case, the depositions adopted represent just about 3.6 per cent of their witness depositions,” he said.
Agabi said that in a mathematical calculation of evidence, 3.6 per cent of Ajaka’s witness deposition adopted in the petition amounted to a failure and, therefore, ought to be dismissed.
The lawyer also described the case as “frivolous”.
He said the petitioners equally failed to file the witness deposition before hand in contravention of the Supreme Court’s decision in Obungado’s case.
He argued that the petitioners’ witness, who testified about the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines clearly stated that he could not guarantee whether those were the BVAS used.
Besides, he said the witness was not the maker of the inputs in the BVAS machines.
“Also, the evidence contained in the BVAS machines fell short of what is required of the law,” he added.
He argued that out of the 25 witnesses called by the petitioners, there was no single polling unit agent among them.
“In other words, not a single person who observed the election was called.
“Besides, the star witness could not distinguish between what he heard and what he saw when questions were put to him,” he said.
While adopting his final written address dated and filed on May 1, Daudu, who appeared for Gov. Ododo, urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition in its entirety.
Adumbrating, he argued that the petition was statute barred (filed out of time).
But Akubo objected to Daudu’s citing of the section, describing it as fresh argument.
Daudu, in response, disagreed with Akubo that he was raising fresh issues after a final written address had been filed.
“You cannot shut me out from making my comment. You cannot because you don’t have the power to do so,” he said.
He said if the court found merit in his argument, Akubo had the right to respond because it bordered on issues of remittal procedure.
After taking the arguments, Justice Birnin-Kudu reserved judgment in the petition.
