After more than four months of sleepless night over Election matter against him pending before the Tribunal, the Bayelsa State House of Assembly Speaker, Mr Nestor Binabo can at least for now have a rest of mind.

This is because the Tribunal has dismissed the case for lack of merit.

Giving reasons for the dismissal, the Tribunal chaIrman. Justice Halima Mohammed, remarked that exhibit “B’’ (letter of termination of appointment) in which the applicant relied upon was not supported in evidence.

.The Speaker, Nestor Binabo was elected to represent Sagbama II Constituency on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party in the last April general elections; and the Labour Party candidate,at the election, Barnabas Edure however objected to the victory by asking the tribunal to nullify the election alleging that the speaker falsified his records by presenting forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.

Edure argued that Binabo failed to disclose that his appointment in the civil service of the old Rivers state was terminated in the intent form he filled and submitted to INEC prior to the elections.

But in his judgment which lasted over two hours, the chairman of the Tribunal, Justice Mohammed, threw the objections of the petitioner over board saying that the petitioner has not prove his case beyond every reasonable doubt.

The Tribunal Chairman stressed that exhibit B which was a certified true copy of dismissal letter relied on by the petitioner to prove his case was insufficient and contained irregularities contrary to the provisions of the Evidence Act.

Justice Mohammed also ruled that failure to produce other documents to support the exhibit by the petitioner had raised doubts on its genuineness as the source was not sufficiently proven.

According to the Tribunal, there is “a disconnect from what was pleaded and what ought to be proved” adding that instead of using the word “dismissal”, the petitioner pleaded ‘’termination’’ of appointment.

“The wordings of Section 107(1) of the constitution speak of dismissal. We, therefore, found out that there is a disconnect from what was pleaded and what ought to be proved. It has been held that termination of appointment cannot be a ground for disqualification.’’

“We find, therefore, abinitio that the case by the petition cannot stand to the extent that they had pleaded termination of appointment which is not the wordings of Section 107(1) of the constitution.”

The Tribunal further held that: “The non-production of other documents surrounding exhibit B is another issue that raise doubt in the minds of the tribunal. All the documents pleaded in the petition were not tendered expect exhibit B. The original letter, that is, exhibit B was not dated, “We have noted similar irregularities in that particular document. The document is supposed to have been issued from the office of the civil service commission. If the court draws inference from the two stamps in the document, the stamps are not visible at all and the tribunal cannot strain itself in trying to know what is written in the document.”