Bayelsa Guber Poll: PCA Dismisses APC/Sylva’s Petition, Tribunal To Resume Sitting

The President of the Court of Appeal, PCA, Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem, has declined to disband the Bayelsa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
The PCA, dismissed a petition the All Progressives Congress, APC, and its candidate, Chief Timipre Sylva, filed to sack the three-member panel of Justices that are currently hearing the case they filed to challenge the outcome of the governorship election that held in the state on November 11, 2023.
The petitioners had insisted that they no longer had confidence in the ability of the Justice Adekunele Adeleye-led panel tribunal to do justice in the electoral dispute.
While accusing the panel of openly exhibiting its bias against them, the petitioners alleged that whereas they proposed to call a total of 224 witnesses to prove that the election was not won by governor Douye Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the tribunal only allowed them to call 49 witnesses within seven days.
In the petition that was signed by their lawyer, Mr. Sylvester Elema, SAN, Sylva and the APC said they were denied fair hearing by the tribunal which they further accused of distorting its record of the proceedings to favour the Respondents.
Likewise, in a separate letter they forwarded to the tribunal, Sylva and the APC applied for their case against the outcome of the Bayelsa governorship poll to be adjourned sine-die (indefinitely), pending the outcome of their petition against the tribunal.
Following the development, the tribunal, on March 4, suspended further hearing on the matter to await the decision of the Appeal Court President.
However, in her response to the petition, the PCA dismissed it for want of merit, even as she gave the panel the nod to proceed with the hearing.