EKITI PDP YET TO GET COPY OF TRIBUNAL'S MINORITY VERDICT

TWO weeks after the election petition tribunal delivered its judgment in the petition filed by the Action Congress and its candidate in the April 25, 2009 re-run election in the state, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), which was one of the respondents in the petition yesterday claimed that it was yet to receive a certified copy of the minority judgment delivered by the tribunal.

In a statement by the Deputy Chairman of the party, Mr. David Oke, the PDP also criticised the opposition party for its negative pronouncements on the majority judgment since the tribunal delivered its verdict in the petition.

The tribunal had in a split decision of three-two validated the election of Governor Segun Oni and dismissed the petition filed by AC. But the minority judgment delivered by Justice Adebayo Adebara and Justice Egbuniya Ogunniya upheld the case of the petitioners.

While the majority judgment delivered by the chairman of the tribunal, Justice Hama Barka had already been typed-written, the minority judgment was in a long hand.

Oke, who frowned at the development, said 'on the issue of the minority judgment being overplayed and over-dramatised by the AC and their paid agent. It is pertinent to note that the certified true copy of the said judgment has not been seen by anybody except the judges that gave the judgment.

'Following some public reactions in the newspapers on the recent judgment by the Ekiti State Tribunal, our party has sworn to an affidavit of clarification that there was the majority ruling which was the only judgment of the court.'

The party also said that the state government was not planning to take loan from any bank as alleged by the Action Congress.

But the AC spokesman, Mr. Yemi Adaramodu said the party would not join issue with the PDP on the existence of the minority judgment, said both the majority and minority judgments were read in open court and if the PDP members decided in their naivety to claim that there was no minority judgment, they should be allowed to continue to live in their fools paradise.