•Sylva
President, Court of Appeal, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, has refused to disband the three-man panel of the Bayelsa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Adekunle Adeleye, in a ruling yesterday, disclosed that the President of the Court of Appeal, had in a letter, dated March 5, mandated the tribunal to proceed with hearing of the petition, irrespective of any application by the parties, reports Daily Independent.
Adeleye said the PCA’s letter has overtaken the request by the petitioners for the disbandment of the tribunal.
In view of the PCA’s directive, the panel yesterday refused to recuse itself from further hearing of the petition challenging the declaration of Governor Douye Diri by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as winner of the November 11, 2023, Bayelsa State governorship election.
The petition was filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC), and its candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva.
At a resumed sitting, the panel dismissed Sylva’s application, urging it to disqualify itself from hearing his petition over allegation of bias.
Justice Adeleye dismissed the motion after taking arguments from Mr. Tunde Falola, INEC’s lawyer; Mr. Charles Edosanwan, and Chris Uche (SAN) for Governor Diri.
Mr. Chukwuma Machukwu Ume (SAN) represented the Bayelsa Deputy Governor while Tayo Oyetibo (SAN) stood in for the PDP.
Sylva’s lawyer, Falola, had argued that his clients filed the fresh application against the tribunal on the ground that they are convinced beyond reasonable doubt that they cannot get justice from the panel.
Sylva and APC further stated that the tribunal had exhibited strange circumstances that made them to believe that they would be denied fair hearing.
Therefore, the petitioners urged the tribunal to, in the interest of justice, recuse itself and allow a fresh panel to be constituted by the PCA.
All the respondents, through their respective lawyers, raised objections to the request for the panel members to withdraw from hearing of the petition.
They submitted that the petitioner’s motion was aimed at preventing the respondents from opening their defence against the petition.
They stated that the motion by APC and Sylva was a calculated attempt to blackmail the tribunal members to do their bidding.
Meanwhile, the tribunal has adjourned to March 13 and 14, for INEC to open and close its defence.
Recall that the returning officer, Professor Faruq Kuta, had announced that the PDP and Diri polled 175, 196 votes to defeat his closest rival, Timipre Sylva of the APC who scored 110,108 votes.
The petitioners are insisting that INEC denied them of votes in their “strong areas”, when it cancelled results in three local government areas of Nembe, Ogbia and Southern Ijaw, over allegation of disruption of the electoral process and diversion of electoral materials.
