Earlyface

The Ondo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal will resume sitting today.

It will hear the petitions of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Accord and Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) .

All parties (petitioners and respondents) have filed applications for the pre-hearing session.

At the pre-hearing session, the tribunal will consider the joinder of parties, amendments, hearing of objection on points of law, agreement on the tendering of documents and streamlining of witnesses.

The pre-hearing shall be adjourned daily for 14 days. The petitions, it was learnt, may be consolidated.

However, Accord, which is challenging the exclusion of its candidate from the October 20 election, is opposed to the consolidation of the petitions.

Except for the objections, Accord’s petition may be decided in a matter of weeks, as most parties in the petition do not have more than three witnesses.

With ACN’s 118 witnesses, PDP’s and the Labour Party’s (LP’s) over 2000 witnesses, petitions may take months to decide, if consolidated by the tribunal at the pre-hearing.

The tribunal has directed parties to take a second look at their number of witnesses, considering the fact that they only have 14 days to prove their case.

The tribunal has 180 days to determine the petitions.

The LP’s legal team prefers the petitions to be decided at the pre-hearing stage, but the ACN’s team said all objections should be taken with the substantive petitions, in accordance with the Electoral Act.

These issues will be decided at the pre-hearing.

Ondo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal Kicks Off Sitting