Dr. Olusegun Mimiko

Tribunal overrules Agagu on admittance of Mimiko’s documents – Vanguard.

THE Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Akure, the Ondo State capital yesterday, overruled the objection of Governor Olusegun Agagu not to admit some documents presented by the Labour Party governorship candidate in the state Dr Olusegun Mimiko challenging his victory at the polls.

Also, the tribunal ruled that both parties in the suit should present before it all documents in respect of their cases and they would be admitted as read in order to fast tract the matter.
It fixed next week Wednesday and Thursday for Dr Mimiko to present his witnesses as further hearing in the petition continues

Dr Agagu’s counsel Chief Kayode Olatoke said at the resume of the petition filed by Labour Party challenging his victory at the April 14 polls that the documents emanated from INEC were only certified but not signed.

Dr. Olatoke argued that the tribunal should not admit the document, as they were defective adding that some of the document sought to tender failed to meet the required condition as contained in the Evidence Act. The documents in question only had the stamp of INEC that certified them but did not have any author or signature.

Olatoke said the “documents were merely ordinary sheet of paper which anybody could put INEC stamps to them and as such is not tenable at the tribunal.

“I hereby rejected the documents which were not tendered by INEC but were listed by the Labour Party to be tender to the Tribunal”.

But at the resume of the matter, the Chairman of the Tribunal Justice Garba Nabaruma expressed worries over the delay tactics of counsel for about two months cited paragraph 4, 5, and 6 sub section 5, paragraph 5 sub section 10 of the practice direction rule 29 of the Federal High Court to buttress his order that the documents be brought by both parties to fast tract the petition.