THE Secretary to Ondo State Election Petition Tribunal, Mrs Rasheedat Rasheed, said on Thursday that the delay in transmitting record of the tribunal judgement on the governorship election was due to its voluminous nature.
The judgement in Olusegun Mimiko’s case challenging the election of Gov. Olusegun Agagu was delivered on July 25.
Speaking in an interview in Akure, Rasheedat said the judgement consisted of 16 volumes of 7904 pages which could not be completed within the 10 working days stipulated by the practice direction.
She said the petitioner’s counsel, Dr Olumide Ayeni, had earlier written a letter to her office requesting her to ensure that all processes filed in the petition form part of the record of appeal.
According to her, Dr Kayode Olatoke, counsel to Agagu, equally wrote her a letter requesting that all the court processes be filed to the Appeal Court.
“The exhibits are voluminous and have to be arranged serially. We cannot delegate the job as the proof reading of the tribunal preceding must be done without an error, ‘’she explained.
“We must not alter anything in the judgement and we cannot transmit half record, so the people must be patient.
“I have been in Ondo state since the delivering of the judgement on July 25. I did not go on holidays and as a lawyer I did not attend NBA conference due to this job.”
She said the tribunal received 64 petitions out of which six judgements, including governorship election petition which were delivered at the tribunals had been taken to the court of appeal in Benin.
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