The All Progressives Congress and its candidate in the Bayelsa state off-cycle gubernatorial election, which was held last November, Timipre Sylva, have petitioned the President of the Court of Appeal, calling for the disbandment of the state governorship electoral tribunal over allegations of bias and inconsistency.

The electoral tribunal, chaired by Justice Adekunle Adeleye, was set up to hear the electoral matters regarding the off-cycle election, in which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Governor Duoye Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and his deputy, Lawrence Ewhrujakpo, as the winners of the poll.

According to the electoral commission, the PDP candidate became victorious for his reelection after polling 175, 196 votes to defeat his closest rival, Sylva, who had 110,108 votes. Dissatisfied with the outcome of the poll, the APC and its candidate approached the tribunal to upturn the result of the poll.

While the tribunal was still ongoing, Timpre Sylva had already closed their case at the last proceeding, having called all witnesses including the former Commissioner of Police in Bayelsa state, Akeem Alausa.

However, Justice Adeleye, during the proceeding today announced that a petition has been filed against the tribunal, questioning the members’ neutrality and integrity and seeking indefinite adjournment in the hearing of the case.

The judge stated that in the petition dated March 4, 2024, the parties claimed that by requiring the tribunal to call their 234 witnesses within seven days, they were violating their constitutional right to a fair hearing. The petition also alleged that the court only allowed the complainant to call just 8 witnesses to the stand instead of the agreed 25, which pushed them to close their case earlier than expected.

The petition partly reads “In order to comply with this deadline, the petitioners scheduled to call 25 witnesses per day, but the Tribunal could only take about 8 witnesses each day. In the face of this impossible situation, the petitioners had no choice but to close their case on Tuesday 27th February 2024 after calling only 49 witnesses out of the 234 witnesses.

“Upon the perusal of the Record of Proceedings, we were perplexed to find that the Tribunal had already made their findings and decisions with respect to the authenticity and weight of the documents (polling unit results) tendered by the petitioners even before the conclusion of the case. Examples are to be found on several pages of the Record of proceedings such as page 93 where the Tribunal wrote as follows; “Tribunal members:- Observation in open court shows that the same pattern of writing was employed, ” the petition added.

“It is obvious from the forgoing that the petitioners cannot get justice from the Tribunal as presently constituted, since it is obvious that the tribunal Chairman has descended into the arena of the legal conflict between the parties.

“In the light of the abnormalities mentioned above, we respectfully request your lordship to disband the membership of the Tribunal and reconstitute same urgently. As earlier indicated above, we have up till May 28, 2024, before the lifespan of the Tribunal will expire. So there is still enough time for a new Tribunal to start de novo and conclude the trial within the constitutional lifespan of 180 days.”

In response to this development, APC and Sylva demanded in a separate letter that they brought to the Tribunal through their counsel, R. O. Balogun, that the matter be put on hold indefinitely while they wait for the Court of Appeal President to rule on the petition.

Meanwhile, Justice Adeleye agreed with them and adjourned the case indefinitely, pending the outcome of the appeal court.