The Edo State election tribunal which relocated to Abuja recently after adjourning in Benin, has been witnessing a legal showdown as expected.
Three of Nigeria’s top Senior Advocates led the charge to dismantle the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s case.
Instead, the proceedings took an unexpected turn as the PDP’s star witness (PW12) turned the tables, humiliating the legal heavyweights and strengthening the case against them.
Counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), began his cross-examination to cast doubt on PW12’s testimony.
He questioned whether PW12’s statement relied on reports from agents and experts. But PW12 set the record straight, stressing that his testimony was based solely on his personal and direct examination of the election documents.
The senior lawyer tried another angle, questioning how Asue Ighodalo could have won if most votes were unlawful.
PW12’s response was: “After removing the invalid votes, those rendered unlawful by INEC’s non-compliance, Asue scored the majority of lawful votes.”
The Senior Advocate had no comeback. Realizing he was losing ground, he cut his cross-examination short at just 24 minutes, well before his allotted 40 minutes, and handed over to Ikpeazu.
The lawyer representing All Progressives Congress (APC)’s candidate Senator Monday Okpebholo, made an even bigger blunder, by inadvertently proving the PDP’s case.
His focus was on Form EC25B, which records the serial numbers of sensitive election materials. The law states that if these numbers aren’t recorded, the polling unit’s result is automatically invalid.
Believing he had a winning argument, the legal practitioner presented Exhibit PJF, the INEC manual, and directed PW12 to page 15, which described Form EC25D.
PW12 turned to page 20 of the same manual and pointed out that INEC’s instructions required EC25B—not EC25D—for proper recording.
The lawyer claimed that no EC25Bs had been filled at all. PW12 immediately countered, pointing to Exhibit PJE1-11, which showed that some presiding officers had recorded serial numbers, albeit incompletely, proving INEC’s inconsistency.
The INEC’s legal counsel had, unintentionally, strengthened the PDP’s argument that INEC failed to comply with electoral guidelines.
By the time the lawyer representing the APC, took over, the mood in the courtroom had shifted.
He began by claiming that 4,519 polling unit results had been uploaded to INEC’s IREV. PW12 corrected him instantly: only 4,466 had been uploaded.
He then tried another approach—presenting 16 polling unit agent copies and claiming that only three were stamped.
PW12 acknowledged this but pointed out that 16 polling units represented less than 1% of the total, statistically insignificant in the grand scheme of the election.
The APC’s lawyer attacked PW12’s credibility, arguing that since he was not physically present at polling units, he could not testify on what happened there.
But PW12 retorted: “In this tribunal sitting in Abuja, you identified that 13 out of 16 documents were not stamped. Did you need to be at the polling unit to make this determination? My testimony is based on my personal examination of election documents—documents that show Asue won.”
Experts say what was expected to be a legal masterclass by three of Nigeria’s finest lawyers turned into a legal disaster for APC.
