Peterside, APC report alleged threat on witnesses’ life

‎The All Progressives Congress and its candidate in the April 11, 2015 governorship election in Rivers State, on Saturday, reported to the state’s Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja that their witnesses who had earlier testified were receiving threats to their life from unknown persons.

The petitioners, who are by their petition challenging the declaration of Governor Nyesom Wike ‎of the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner of the poll‎, had so far called 22 witnesses out of the 200 they proposed to bring to the tribunal.

‎The petitioners made the complained of the alleged threat to their witnesses, to the tribunal through their lawyer, Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), on Saturday.

Olujinmi said their witnesses were receiving threats, warning them never to return to Port Harcourt, the state capital.

He said, “Those, who have appeared before the tribunal to testify, are warned not to return to Port-Harcourt.

“Some of those we brought today have received calls on phone, threatening to deal with them. A situation where lawyers and witnesses are being threatened will threaten justice. We want the court to be firm on this.”

Responding, Wike’s lawyer, Mr. Emmanuel Ukala(SAN), denied knowledge of such threat.

Ukala said it was expected that Olujinmi informed about such development before bringing it to the knowledge of the tribunal.

PDP’s lawyer, Chris Uche(SAN), also denied knowledge of the case, saying the complaint could be part of the petitioners’ plan to use it as an excuse for not being able to call all their proposed witnesses.

“My people say, when a woman cannot deliver, she will say it is because of the spell her in-laws cast on her,” Uche said.

The chairman of the tribunal, Justice Mohammed Ambrosa, said the tribunal would not be comfortable that “those who appear in court are not free.”

He advised that those who receive such threat messages should report to security agencies, who must investigate and take other necessary action.

Meanwhile, the petitioners on Saturday called four witnesses, who testified that election did not hold on April 11 in their respective areas, adding that the votes with which Wike was said to have won were cooked up.

One of the witnesses, Dr. Lawrence Chukwu, who is a former Vice-Chairman of Obio-Akpor Local‎ Government Area of Rivers State, said election materials never got to overwhelming number of polling units of the local government area on the Election Day.

Chukwu‎, a lecturer at the University of Port Harcourt, served as Vice Chairman of the local government during the the period the incumbent Governor of Rivers State, Nyesom Wike, was the chairman between 1999 and 2006.

Chukwu was the 19th petitioners’ witness called by the All Progressives Congress and its candidate in the April 11, 2015 governorship poll in Rivers State, Dr. Dakuku Peterside.

Both the APC and Peterside had filed their petition challenging the declaration of Wike and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party as the winner of the poll.

Chukwu, on Saturday, like other previous petitioners’ witnesses and others called after him, testified that election materials did not get to most parts of their areas and that results were not collated ‎at the various wards collation centres of their respective local government areas.

“Ballot papers to most most of the wards. If I want to be conservative, I will say the ballot papers did not get to 75 to 80 per cent of the polling units of Obio-Akpor Local Government Area and few places where the ballot papers got to results were not declared,” he said.