Five political parties have challenged Governor Godwin Obaseki of Edo state as the rightful winner of the September 19 gubernatorial election through petitions.
The Edo Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal has received petitions from the Action Peoples Party (APP), Action Alliance (AA), Mr Ukonga Frank, Allied Peoples’ Movement(APM), the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP), Mr Agol Ebun, and Action Democratic Party (ADP), Mr Iboi Emmanuel.
Obaseki and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have been named as respondents.
Sunday Martins, Secretary of the tribunal, has confirmed the petitioning yesterday, Monday.
He said that the 21-day window period for the submission of petitions ended on Saturday but that the bailiff had not succeeded in his efforts to personally serve Obaseki the court notice.
He explained that the petitioning “is an originating process” hence the governor has to be served personally.
ADP and its candidate Iboi Emmanuel have however, named Obaseki, PDP, Osagie Ize-Iyamu and APC as defendants.
On the other hand, the petitions of candidates of APP and AA are challenging their unlawful exclusion from the ballot papers by INEC, after having been validly-nominated by their party. They are requesting the tribunal to nullify the election and order a fresh poll to be conducted within 90 days.
Also, they are demanding that all validly-nominated candidates should be included in the new ballot papers.
APM and NNPP were challenging the validity of Forms EC9 and CF001, reportedly submitted by Obaseki in respect of the 2020 and 2016 governorship polls in the state.
ADP and its candidate, Emmanuel asked the tribunal to look at the list of Vice-Chancellors (VC) of the University of Ibadan (UI), from 1947 to date to note that an e-newspaper publication announced the death of Prof. Tekena Tamuno. In his petition, he alleges that Tamuno could not have signed the certificate that Obaseki allegedly presented to the APC for screening.
He also claims that the purported university degree, which Obaseki claimed was issued by UI, had no date on it. Hence, he argues that Obaseki was not qualified to run for the polls so that all the votes credited to him become null and void.
