From Ahmad Mohammed, Bauchi
The Governorship, National and State Assembly Election PetitionTribunal in Bauchi State, has denied receipt of any petition on Bauchi Governorship election from the governing All Progressives Congress.
The Secretary of the Tribunal, Bello Abdullahi, disclosed this while speaking to newsmen yesterday in Bauchi yesterday.
He said ,”that the tribunal has not received any petition for the Governorship election in the state”.
He explained that “they(APC) still have time to file their petitions, except if they don’t want to challenge the election”.
According to him, “Most of them wait till the day, late hour and last minute before they file their petitions and you can’t refuse them, because it is their right and it is within the stipulated time.”
He explained that the tribunal received 26 portions out of which 15 of the petitions are for the National Assembly elections.
“We have so far received 26 petitions with 7 are for the Senate. The 7 petitions are from all the Senatorial Districts with some having multiples. For the House of Representatives, we have so far received only 8 petitions meaning that not all the Representatives submitted their petitions,” he said.
On whether the tribunal has started sitting, the Secretary said that it has started partial sitting.
He said: “The tribunal has started sitting partially on motion ex parte only. As soon as that is over between now and Friday, the next thing we’ll wait for is filling of memoranda and replies. When this is over, we’ll issue out a pre-hearing session notice and together with the inaugural session.
“As soon as that is done, we we will start the pre-hearing session.”
