Sokoto governorship: Tribunal admits APC documents as five witnesses testify

The 2019 Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Sokoto, on Tuesday admitted some documents tendered by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its governorship candidate in the last general election in the state as exhibits.

This was in spite of the stringent objection of the Counsels of the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Respondents.

In his ruling, the chairman of the tribunal, Justice Abbas Abdullahi Bawale, said the court considered the submissions for and against the tendering of the documents from the bar.

The chairman averred that the Lead Counsels of the Petitioners, Dr. Alex Izinyon, SAN have the right to tender the documents as they are public documents.

According to him, the tribunal would oblige the respondents to see the documents and consequently overruled their objections.

All the documents were later admitted as exhibits by the tribunal.

The documents included copies of Forms EC8 A and B from Tambuwal, Sokoto South, Tureta, Goronyo, Kebbe, Illela, Wurno, and Gada local governments.

Others were copies of the summary of results for the General and Supplementary elections as well as two copies of Form EC 40 G for Illela and Kebbe local governments.

In the same vein, voters’ registers of 27 polling units and some wards of 10 local government areas were tendered.

Meanwhile, the petitioners have presented five witnesses as at the time of filing this report.

The witnesses were earlier six but the lead Counsel of the petitioners later withdrew one who said he could not identify his report.