Wike, INEC want Peterside petition dismissed

Rivers State Governor Nyesom Wike and the Independent National Electoral Commission on Friday asked the state governorship election petitions tribunal sitting in Abuja to dismiss the petition filed by the All Progressives Congress and its candidate in the April 2015 poll, Dr. Dakuku Peterside.

Wike and INEC predicated their prayer for the dismissal of the petition on the petitioners’ failure to pay a fee of N100 for the filing of the issuance of pre-hearing notice Form TF007.

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But counsel to Peterside and the APC who, through their petition, are challenging the declaration of Wike as the winner of the April 11 poll, Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), asked the Justice Muazu Pindiga-led tribunal to dismiss the respondents’ application for lacking in merit.

Olujinmi insisted that since the application for the pre-hearing notice was by a letter to the secretary to the tribunal, his clients were not liable to pay for filing fee as such was not specifically provided for in any law.

He maintained that Paragraph 2 of the TF007 only made provision for the submission of the form and not filing which would have warranted payment of filing fee.

He added that even if his clients were required to pay the fee, failure to do so could only amount to a mere irregularity which the tribunal could direct them to pay at any time.

He also maintained that his clients, like other parties to the petition, had made a deposit of N500,000 security fund to the tribunal, so the tribunal could easily deduct N100 from the said money if it was a must that the N100 fee must be paid.

Olujinmi, a former Attorney-General of the Federation added, “It is now settled that a petitioner can start a pre-hearing session by oral application. If I’m passing by, I can just ask the secretary to the tribunal to issue Form TF 007. So am I going to pay for the voice?”

Wike’s lawyer, Mr. Emmanuel Ukala (SAN), urged the tribunal to be persuaded by a ruling delivered by the Imo State Governorship Elections Petition Tribunal in Owerri on July 22, 2015, dismissing the petition filed by the PDP’s governorship candidate in the state, Emeka Ihedioha, on the grounds of the petitioner’s failure to pay the N100 fee for the filing of the pre-hearing notice.

INEC’s lawyer, Chief K. C Njamanze (SAN), who also canvassed the same argument, said the payment of the fee was a condition precedent for the tribunal to assume jurisdiction on the petition.