Salami heads presidential election tribunal •Oni, Oyinlola tackle Salami at NJC probe panel today

THE Congress for Progressive Change’s (CPC’s) petition challenging the election of President Goodluck Jonathan took off on a shaky start, on Tuesday, with the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja striking out its ex parte application seeking a forensic inspection of the materials used for the April 16 presidential election.

The identity of the five-man panel that would determine the fate of Jonathan’s mandate was finally unveiled on Tuesday after weeks of secrecy with the President of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Isa Salami, heading the panel.

The intermediate court is the court of first instance for disputes arising from presidential polls.

Salami led four others, Justices M.L Garba; M.A Owoade; I.I. Agbube and Obande Ogbuinya.

While Salami is being probed by the National Judicial Council (NJC) panel headed by his immediate predecessor-in-office, Justice Umaru Abdullahi, over the conduct of the appeal panel he led to sack Ekiti State governor, Segun Oni, Garba is under the probe panel’s radar over his membership of the appeal panel that sacked Osun State governor, Olagunsoye Oyinlola, which had been accused of corrupt acts.

Meanwhile, Oni, Oyinlola and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Osun State chapter, will this morning before the probe panel engage in a crossfire with Salami and other justices of the Court of Appeal mentioned in the alleged bribe-for-judgment saga involving chieftains of the Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN).

It was learnt that the trio with separate petitions before the probe panel would be providing more evidence on the call logs of the jurists and politicians already with the panel as exhibits, while communications experts were also said to have been provided by the petitioners to help their testimonies today.

Oyinlola is also contesting the cancellation of 110 wards of the 332 wards in the state, which provided the template for the appeal panel to award victory to Governor Rauf Aregbesola of the ACN.

The five-man presidential election petition tribunal struck out CPC’s application, following the withdrawal of same by its lead counsel, James Ocholi SAN.

The petitioner replaced it with another 15-ground application making the same request as the withdrawn one.

Ocholi told the panel that the first application was technically deficient; hence the decision to substitute it with the fresh one filed on May 16, adding that he was not aware of the directive of the court that the respondents should be put on notice.

Counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Adegboyega Awomolo SAN, did not object to the application but, however, filed a better and further application.

Counsel for President Goodluck Jonathan and Vice-President Namadi Sambo, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN, who led other nine senior advocates, did not also oppose the application but prayed the court to allow the petitioner to effect the service of the motion on the counsel.

Counsel for the PDP, Joe Kyari Gadzama SAN, did not also oppose the withdrawal of the petitioner’s earlier application.

After the striking out of the withdrawn application, Salami adjourned till May 23 to hear the fresh application.

He further ordered that all respondents should be put on notice and that service should henceforth be through counsel for counsel to avoid cases of delay services.

While speaking with journalists after the proceedings, Ocholi stated that the fresh application was to seek the leave of the panel to compel INEC to bring some vital documents that would maintain the main appeal.

Olanipekun, while also addressing journalists, said his clients were not afraid of the request of the petitioner, which he described as abstract, adding that they had good grounds to defend their clients, even if all the ballot papers would have to be scrutinised.