The National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Makurdi, the Benue State capital, has admitted four exhibits from the subpoenaed Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC’s) witnesses in a petition by Mr. Daniel Onjeh of the All Progressives Congress (APC) challenging the return of Senator David Mark by the INEC.
The former Senate president was returned winner of the Benue South election held on March 28, having defeated his rival, Onjeh.
At the resumed sitting, Mr. Yakubu Nachamada, one of the witnesses from INEC, identified five documents, which Onjeh sought to tender, but the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP’s) counsel, Chris Alechenu, objected to the admissibility of one of them.
He premised his rejection on the grounds that the document did not originate from the party.
The document in contention is a letter dated July 27, authorising the INEC worker to be a witness in the suit.
Alechenu averred that the letter could only be tendered in evidence either through the INEC chairman, the resident electoral commissioner or the writer of the letter, saying the witness was neither of them.
“The witness is not the writer, addressee and is not even copied in the letter. So, the letter cannot be tendered through him.”
Mr. Kenneth Ikoni, counsel to Mark, corroborated the views of the PDP counsel and urged the court to reject the admissibility of the letter.
Onjeh’s counsel, Tunji Oso, urged the court to discountenance the objections raised by the respondents’ counsel, saying the document was relevant and sufficient to link the witness to the evidence relating to his relevance in court.
Citing the Nigerian Weekly Law Report, page 17 (G-H), he averred that “a document linking a witness to an evidence can be tendered with or without the consent of the writer or addressee.”
The tribunal Chairman, Justice Mosunmola Dipeolu, ruled that the document was vital to the appearance of the witness in court.
She overruled the objections of the two lawyers and admitted the document in evidence as Exhibit PA.
The Card Reader Accreditation Data in respect of the election for the polling units in the senatorial district generated from the INEC website and presented in court by Nachamada was admitted in evidence.
Another exhibit admitted in evidence was the receipt for the certification of documents.
However, the court refused another application by Oso to tender the subpoena by the tribunal for the two witnesses from INEC to testify in court.
Counsel to the PDP had urged the court to reject the admissibility of the order on the grounds that it was already the document of the court, stressing that the court had no need for it in evidence.
Justice Dipeolu agreed with the respondents’ counsel and rejected the admissibility of the subpoena order in evidence.
The case was adjourned for the continuation of trial.
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