31 petitions have been submitted to the Bayelsa State Election Petition Tribunal, which started meeting in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa capital, on Thursday.
Justice O. Fagbemi, the tribunal’s chair, warned plaintiffs and attorneys not to request pointless adjournments through frivolous applications and preliminary objections that might eat up the court’s time in her inaugural statement to formally begin the tribunal proceedings.
She urged the parties to work together to guarantee swift justice because the tribunal was time-limited.
She said, “We solicit your support and cooperation in administering justice to all manner of people via petition filed before the tribunal. As it is described, election petitions before the tribunal are time bound and by their nature peculiar from other proceedings.
“We undertake to abide by our oath of office and mandate in dispensing justice with the help of God Almighty.
“We seize this opportunity to admonish counsels and litigants to desist from seeking unnecessary incessant adjournments and filing of frivolous applications and preliminary objections which is time wasting, purely an academic exercise, an exercise in futility aimed at perverting the course of justice.”
