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A socio-political and Integrity group, Bayelsa Renaissance has concluded arrangements to drag the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Chief Timipre Sylva and the state chairman of the party, Barr. Dennis Otiotio, to court over their alleged involvement in cases of perjury, forgery and election malpractices during the last governorship election in the state.
The group is putting up a formal complaint and petition “to make them pay for their actions which were in contravention of the constitution and other rules.”
According to Mr. Imomotimi Abraham, president of the Bayelsa Renaissance, “Both Sylva, the chief petitioner and his lawyer, Otiotio, falsely swore to an oath to deceive the court into accepting fake election documents bearing their fake polling units results amounting to forgery and perjury.
“Otiotio will be referred to the Legal Practitioner Disciplinary Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) and prosecuted based on Section 12 of the Legal Practitioners Act, seeking sanctions against him in the alleged infamous professional misconduct and manipulation of judicial processes, bearing false witness during the just concluded Bayelsa Governorship petition tribunal.
“The chairman of the tribunal, Justice Adekunle Adeleye, apart from concluding that Sylva and Otiotio brought fake polling units results in form EC8A to court under oath amounting to perjury, Otiotio breached the legal professional conduct by bringing himself into the case as a witness.
“Is it not ridiculous for a lawyer? Justice Adekeye made it clear that Otiotio’s action is purely professional misconduct. He signed the petition of Chief Sylva as the lawyer, the same Otiotio was listed as one of the counsels and in another breath, he subjected himself to becoming a witness in same case. This is a man who had equally served as the APC State Collation Agent. His cups are full”, Abraham said.
He continued: ”So, both Chief Sylva and Chief Otiotio colluded and brought before the justices of the Governorship Petition Tribunal fake results and forged signatures of polling units agents to mislead the tribunal.
“INEC lawyer at the tribunal had denounced the fake results from the disputed 184 polling units, insisting the form EC8A brought to the court are fake and never the document of INEC.
“All the respondents argued that most of the election materials the APC presented as INEC’s documents before the court were allegedly manufactured by the APC state chairman and their lawyer, Dennis Otiotio.
“The election documents presented in court as INEC forms were actually alleged to have been printed in Yenagoa.
“Counsel to the INEC in his own cross-examination of Otiotio and their party’s witnesses confirmed that all INEC result sheets had barcodes but that those ones presented as result sheets by the APC had none,” he said.
Mr. Abraham, stated that the action of Sylva and Otiotio also constituted electoral malpractice, a situation where no single INEC official came to defend any of the units results presented by Sylva.
“We will follow up this infractions, broad day light robbery that they want to carry out. It is shameful to be presenting fake documents to the courts. We won’t allow this to slide. This is bad behaviour. The tribunal judgment is sound enough to establish handwriting forgery, perjury and clear electoral fraud against Sylva and Otiotio”, Abraham said.
The Justice Adekunle Adeleye-led three-member tribunal affirmed that the petition filed by the APC Governorship candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva was a “needless distraction.”
