27th May, 2011
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja on Friday cleared all legal obstacles on the way of the forthcoming inauguration of President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan and Vice President Namadi Sambo as it struck out an application filed by Hope Democratic Party seeking for an order of injunction restraining the President and Vice President from presenting themselves on 29 May for swearing in as elected President and Vice President pending the determination of a petition it filed against their victory in the April polls.
The Tribunal also struck out the petition filed before it by the party after it disowned petition.
The lawyer representing Hope Democratic Party before the Tribunal, Mr. Tochukwu Alozor, who purportedly filed the petition on behalf of the party, disowned it.
He also denied signing the petition and told the Tribunal that the signature on the petition was not his even though it was signed on top of his name.
He stated that when he heard that a petition was written by him on behalf of the Hope Democratic Party, he proceeded to see the Chairman of the party, Chief Ambrose Owuru but said Owuru refused to discuss the issue with him.
He said that he was left with no other option but to appear before the court as an interested party.
Attempt by a new lawyer, Mr. E.J. Ogar who said he had been briefed to take over the prosecution of the petition to discredit the claim by Tochukwu failed.
President Jonathan’s lawyer, Dr. Alex Izinyon, a senior advocate of Nigeria asked the court to dismiss the application for an injunction to stop the inauguration in view of the fact that no proper petition was before the court.
He said that once the person who purportedly prepared and signed the petition had denied doing so, it meant that there was no petition to sustain the application for an injunction to stop the inauguration.
However, counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission, Abubakar Mahmoud, also a senior advocate urged the court to exercise caution in handling the issue of the injunction even as he agreed with Dr. Izinyon that the inauguration must go ahead.
Confused, the Tribunal members, led by Justice Ayo Isa Salami, stood the matter down briefly and conferred with one another inside the chambers.
When they returned, they drew the attention of the new counsel to the party to a new application filed by him yesterday seeking to withdraw the entire petition.
The court then asked him what he intended to do with the new application.
He said he was ready to move it.
While moving the application, he said that the petitioner was no longer interested in maintaining the petition having congratulated Jonathan as the winner of the election.
All other counsel did not oppose the withdrawal of the petition.
Izinyon asked the court to strike it out on the ground that there was no petition before the court.
Mahmoud, however said that the proper order to make was to dismiss the case. He also asked for cost.
In dismissing the petition, Salami said that even though the petitioner did not follow the procedure for withdrawing a petition, the court was ready to indulge him.
He said that the court found it expedient to grant the application by striking it out.
By Nnamdi Felix / Abuja