KADUNA CPC PETITIONS TRIBUNAL OVER EXHIBITS

The letter dated August 29, 2011 and signed by the petitioner's counsel, Adeniyi Akintola (SAN), which was made available to newsmen on Thursday, specifically accused the Secretary and the Clerk of the tribunal, Okechukwu and Ignasius as well as the 2nd respondent of tampering with the exhibits in the custody of the tribunal.

CPC also accused the tribunal's personnel of dereliction of duty and actions contrary to oath of office against the tribunal registry.

The letter read, 'My lord, it's a known fact that the petitioners had closed their case since August 10, 2011 and the matter was adjourned to 29th August 2011 for defence. However, on the August 21,2011 reliable information reached me that the Secretary and Clerk of the Tribunal in persons of Mr.Okechukwu and Mr. Igneasius respectively and in concert with the 2nd Respondent were busy tampering with our exhibits which are in the Tribunals custody.

'Consequently, I phoned some of my team members resident in Kaduna and the 1st Petitioner's representatives to go and verify same, on reaching the Tribunal Registry, our fear was confirmed by the vivid and glaring sight of the 2nd Respondents photocopier machine with its seal engraved thereof, and the representative of the 2nd Respondent busy photocopying the voters registers of Jema'a local government which forms part of the exhibits before the Tribunal.

'On enquiry, the Secretary confirmed in clear and unequivocal term that the exercise is not only his behest but same condemnable and obscure exercise had been on since the August 16, 2011 because he received the 2nd Respondent's application to that effect and same was approved by the Tribunal. And he was so magnanimous and boisterous enough to hand over to us a copy of the 2nd Respondent's application.

'However, the secretary made a futile effort to burn the remnant of the photocopied exhibits but was prevented and overwhelmed by my team and the petitioner's representatives.

'The application for the exhibits came from the 2nd Respondent whom has the custody of the originals and as such left a lot of questions than answers.

'The entire morbid, strange and alien exercise was carried out in the absence of the Petitioners representatives and without our knowledge.

'The present Secretary in the person of Mr. Okechukwu was also the 2007 Tribunal Secretary in Benue State in the celebrated case of Young Alhaji Vs David Mark where under his watchful eyes, a well orchestrated and masterminded exercise led to the opening of the floodgate of unresolved missing and tampered exhibits.

'That we are of the reasonable belief that our exhibits were tampered with, but one thing is uncertain, whether same action was done with the tacit and judicial approval of the Tribunal, hence this call for an immediate investigation into the matter with the view of arresting the sorry state of being and bringing to justice whomsoever is involved in this dastardly , brazen and weird action which we termed as gross betrayal of oath of office, a sacrilege to the sanctified and independent judiciary of the nation.'