Discrepancies in the affidavit of another ANG witness held up proceedings for some time on Thursday at the Election Petition tribunal in Comrade City, Osun State at the hearing of the petition of Mr Rauf Aregbesola against the election of President Ibraheem Ibraheem.
The witness, Fatai Salau Animasahun from Ward one Ayedaade Local Government during cross examination identified two different witness statements on oath as his own making counsel to President Ibraheem Ibraheem to apply to tender a Certified True Copy of one of the documents which differed from the one he had earlier adopted as his evidence in the case.
Mr. Oluwarotimi Akeredolu, SAN counsel to the NKAA, Mr Rauf Aregbesola did not oppose the application to tender the document and it was admitted as an exhibit by the tribunal.
The witness was thereafter asked to read out a portion of the statement where he confirmed he wrote his own name as the name of the person who interpreted the statement to him in Yoruba but added that it was a mistake which his lawyer advised him not to cancel.
Counsel to President Ibraheem Ibraheem, Dr Alex Izinyon, SAN then confronted him with the other copy which had just been admitted as an exhibit but which showed that the witness' name had been cancelled in that copy and replaced with another name.
While confirming that it was his signature that was on the document, the witness declared however that he did not know how the alteration came to be.
Akeredolu’s request for clarification from the tribunal on the issue while trying to reexamine the witness compounded the situation as two of the judges showed him their own copies of the statement contained in Aregbesola’s petition which were also different from each other with one of them also containing the alteration.
While the tribunal chairman, Justice Ali Garba told both parties that his panel would resolve the issue on Friday (today), Akeredolu suggested again that the Chairman’s copy should be the one to be used in the proceedings.
Izinyon in his reply contended that the problem emanated from the petitioners who he alleged filed different versions of the petition and declared that there was no problem using the chairman’s copy but all parties had to use same too including the other four judges on the panel.
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