Cross River: Tribunal dismisses 5 more election petitions

The Election Petitions Tribunal panel one, sitting in Calabar, has further dismissed five petitions in favour of all respondents of the People Democratic Party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), second respondents.

The chairman of the tribunal panel , Justice A. Babawale, hinged much of her judgement on the ruling of the Appeal Court which insisted that status quo be maintained by parties, especially the APC in view of their internal party difference before the National Assembly election of February 2019.

She maintained that her tribunal did not have jurisdiction over pre-election matters and internal party squabbles which were deemed to have affected candidates of the All Progressives Congress in their petitions mostly.

In striking out all of the petitions, she also cited copiously other legal authorities to justify her panel’s judgements, insisting that in many instances petitioners who insisted that they were validly nominated but unlawful excluded from the election, were intact, not true, as they dug into law books, INEC statutes, and found out.

The tribunal therefore dismissed the petitions from Mkpanam Bassey Obo against Dominic Asuquo whom INEC declared winner of the Akamkpa/Biase federal constituency election.

Tribunal also dismissed that of Akiba Bassey Ekpenyong against Etta Mbora who won the election and is representing the Calabar Municipality/Odukpani federal constituency for lacking merit.

Similarly, the tribunal also dismissed Dominic Aqua Eden’s petition against a long time member of the House of Representatives representing Akpabuyo/Bakassi/Calabar South federal Constituency.