The election petition tribunal for National Assembly sitting in Umuahia has postponed proceedings in the consolidated petition of former governor of Abia state and candidate for the Abia North senatorial election, Orji Uzor Kalu, to September 11 and 18, 2015.
Orji Kalu
Orji Kalu who was the Progressive Peoples Alliance (PPA) candidate for the election is contesting the declaration of Mao Ohuabunwa of the Peoples Democratic Party as winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The Sun reports that the tribunal chairman, Justice Adeniyi Onigbanjo, said yesterday after taking the forensic expert witness on the matter, that the rescheduling was necessary to accommodate the respondent’s witnesses.
The tribunal had in its earlier schedule, given the terminal date for the proceedings as September 11 and 29, 2015 but later came up that the new date will be 14, 2015.
Justice Onigbanjo overruled the objection of the respondent’s counsel against the testimony of the forensic expert, also known as SW5, which paved the way for him to be cross-examined.
In their objections, the respondents prayed the court not to allow the witness on the ground that the document he came to tender was a computer generated evidence and photocopies instead of providing the original document.
Kalu’s counsel, Chief Kelvin Nwufo , however, said that the objections were misconceived because the documents were duly signed by the witness himself and could not have been rightly said to be computer-generated.
The tribunal eventually ruled on the objections. The forensic expert told the tribunal under cross-examination that he trained as a forensic expert in Kaduna and in the United States. The expert said that he was duly certified for the job.
During the forensic examination, the forensic expert said he scanned 45,367 ballot papers used in the Abia North election even as he said that he separated the ballot papers according to the local government areas so as to arrive at the number for each.
Meanwhile, Ghali Na’abba, former Speaker of the House of Representatives has said that most of Nigerian politicians are persons of questionable character.
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