Senator Jarigbe Begins Defence Of Mandate With 1,531 Exhibits

The Senator representing Cross River North Senatorial District, Jarigbe Agom Jarigbe, has begun to defend his mandate at the election petition tribunal in Calabar.

He is represented by his legal team led by a Calabar based constitutional lawyer, Mr. Mba Ukweni, SAN.

Jarigbe presented 1,531 exhibits before the tribunal, which include authentic Certified True Copies of IREV and hard copies of forms EC8A1 Result sheets.

Speaking with journalists at the Election Petition Tribunal premises in Calabar, Ukweni SAN averred that over 500 constituents from the Senatorial district were lined up to testify unfortunately the election petition tribunal reduced those to testify to 33.

“The Tribunal said we should call a maximum of 33 witnesses but there are many people who are very anxious to testify,” he said.

The Senior Advocate added; “It took us time yesterday (Thursday) to persuade them that many of them are not on the list and they said they want to come and defend their mandate.

“For those who are already on the list, we have over 500 people ready to testify but the tribunal has limited us to 33”.

Ukweni debunked claims by the petitioners that result of the election for Cross River North Senatorial District was rigged, adding that no document was tendered to that effect.

His words; “There was no document they tendered to show that the result was rigged. What they were merely trying to do was the declaration of the result which is Form EC8E1 to show that the other candidates who lost their names were not on the declaration of result list. We will explain that in our final address.

“That form is meant to declare the winner of the election and not the person who lost. The election is a process, from the polling units to the wards, from the wards to the local government before you go to the Senatorial collation.

“So are they saying the summation of results from the constituency level they are in doubt about the scores of the various parties?

“So it is not until their names and scores are included in Form EC8E1 that we can say they participated or any crooked thing was done?

“No crooked thing was done. In fact if you had asked him further he would have explained the circumstances because it was their intention (the petitioners) to change the scores and the people themselves resisted.

“The petitioners had intention to change the scores and he (petitioner) was the sitting governor and so had powers to do what he wanted to do but the people of the Northern Senatorial District resisted.

“It is not just that once a petition has been filed, it is bound to succeed. Generally, what we are doing we just want to be doubly sure otherwise yesterday when we came in, we would have said we are resting our case on their case. But we want to be doubly sure, it’s like killing an ant with a sledge hammer,” he said.