Governor Peter Mbah has been summoned to appear before the Enugu State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal tomorrow, Friday.
The order was issued in response to a request made by the Peoples Redemption Party, PRP, through its counsel, Barr Alex Amujiogo.
Elder Christopher Agu, a PRP candidate, is in court seeking to overturn the declaration of Barr Peter Mbah as the winner of the March 18 governorship election in the state.
He also claims that Mbah was not qualified to run in the election because he allegedly forged his National Youth Service Corps, NYSC, discharge certificate, among other things.
At the resumption of the hearing, Amujiogo, the PRP’s counsel, informed the tribunal that Mbah was supposed to appear in court as a subpoenaed witness.
According to the affidavit deposed to by the bailiff of the Tribunal, he had difficulty serving Mbah the summon.
Amujiogo then filed an application with the Tribunal, requesting that the summons be served on Mbah through his counsel instead of personally.
Although the three respondents, INEC, Mbah, and the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, objected to the application on the grounds that it should have come through motion supported by an affidavit during the pre-trial session, the Tribunal overruled them.
Chairman of the Panel, Justice K. M. Akano ordered that the subpoena be served on Mbah through his counsel and that he should appear before the Tribunal tomorrow, June 23, 2023.
Previously, Agu, the PRP’s gubernatorial candidate during the election, testified before the Tribunal as PW2.
Barr. Aliu Muhammed, an official of the NYSC from the National Secretariat in Abuja, who also appeared on behalf of the Corps’ Director-General, tendered an affidavit to the Tribunal, declaring that an order of a Federal High Court in Abuja was preventing them from tendering the disclaimer the Corps made against Mbah’s certificate.
“Our PW2 (Christopher Agu) has already testified before the Honourable Tribunal and he has given a clearer picture, the synopsis of what transpired during the election and we are urging the Tribunal to set aside the purported result in favour of Peter Mbah, the Governor,” Amujiogo told journalists after the Tribunal’s sitting.
“We had an issue of a subpoena against Barr Peter Ndubuisi Mbah, in which the Tribunal is urging him to appear before it to clarify certain issues against him, based on his NYSC certificate and other matters.
“Surprisingly, he was not in the Tribunal today and the bailiff informed the Tribunal that he is invading service, he cannot find him, and the security cannot allow him to serve Mbah the subpoena.
” Then, the Tribunal, in its own wisdom, after I have applied, has now permitted the bailiff, or myself, to now serve Mbah through his counsel, for him to appear before the Tribunal tomorrow, the 23rd of June, 2023, and clarify certain issues against him before the Tribunal, and we have already served him the said subpoena through his lawyer, Ik Onuoma, today in court.
“So he must obey the summons of the Tribunal by appearing in person tomorrow, Friday.”
Meanwhile, the case filed by the Labour Party’s gubernatorial candidate, Barr Chijioke Edeoga, was heard by the Tribunal.
Edeoga’s pending application was moved before the Tribunal, and the case was adjourned for a ruling on the application he filed before the Tribunal, as well as a pre-trial report.
One of his counsels, Barr. Ifeanyi Ogenyi, who spoke to journalists after the session, said the proceeding was a continuation of the pre-hearing session.
“Pre-hearing started on June 16th and continued today; the petitioners brought an application, a motion interrogatories, seeking answers from the second respondent, that is, Mr. Peter Mbah,” he said.
“Interrogatory is a legal questionnaire; it seeks answers to those questions.
” And some of the questions raised by the petitioners to Peter Mbah, which we are urging the Tribunal to answer, are: when and where did he serve? When was he appointed as Chief of Staff? When was he made commissioner for finance in Enugu State? We want to know the duration he served.
“Because in his pleading, in his reply to the petition, he told the Tribunal that he was once Chief of Staff to Governor Chimaroke Nnamani in 2003, we want to know the year and the date he was appointed.
“We equally want him to produce before the Tribunal, the letter of appointment as Chief of Staff, the letter of appointment as commissioner for finance under Chimaroke, and the institutions he said he attended; we want to have the documents showing that he attended those institutions.
“And the court is to deliver a ruling on that on the 24th of June, that is, on Saturday, whether he should answer those questions or not.”
“On their own side, they said no, they are not going to answer those questions; answering those questions means that we want him to prove our case for us.
“But that is not the position. It is required under the law that where somebody has volunteered some information, you can seek for further particulars.
“What we are seeking are further particulars; he should clarify the Tribunal and give us information on those issues he raised in his own pleadings.
On the 24th, we will be here for the ruling and possibly the conclusion of the pre-hearing, and after the pre-hearing and report are issued, we can now proceed to the substantive hearing,” he added.