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Enugu election tribunal to sit on Sundays, lists 726 witnesses to testify

By Lawrence Njoku, Enugu
28 May 2019   |   2:51 am
The National and State Assembly Elections Tribunal sitting in Enugu may sit on Sundays as 726 witnesses have been listed to appear before it.

Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu

Begins hearing in suit against Ekweremadu
The National and State Assembly Elections Tribunal sitting in Enugu may sit on Sundays as 726 witnesses have been listed to appear before it.

The tribunal Chairman, Justice Haruna Kereng, who stated this yesterday during the resumed sitting of the members, said that the idea of Sunday sitting from 2.00 p.m. is to enable his team meet up with their assignment considering the length of time available to them.He said that the witnesses would testify in 10 election cases, stressing that there was need to speed up hearing processes.

Kereng noted that the tribunal, which was still in pre-trial, had spent more than half of the time allotted it by law to dispose of the petitions and appealed to the counsel to co-operate with the members in their resolve to dispose of the petitions.

Meanwhile, the tribunal has fixed June 10, 2019 for hearing in the petition filed by Mrs. Juliet Ibekaku of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against the election of Deputy Senate President Ike Ekweremadu of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for senatorial seat of Enugu West Constituency.

The decision to start the hearing followed the refusal by the tribunal of an application brought yesterday by the PDP urging it to strike out certain aspects of the petition.

The PDP, through its counsel, Anthony I. Ani (SAN), represented by Tochukwu Maduka, had prayed the tribunal to strike out certain paragraphs of the petition, which it considered “incongruous to the provisions of the constitution on fair-hearing.”

But Ibekaku, through her counsel, Mr. K. P. Luke, urged the tribunal to dismiss the application, saying it lacked competence.He said that the tribunal had the requisite jurisdiction to hear all the paragraphs of their petition.

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