Election petition tribunals begin sitting this week

Election Petition Tribunals across the states will begin sitting this week as the general election ended last Thursday, Nigerian Tribune can reliably disclose.Chairmen and members who were inaugurated on March 21, 2011 by the Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN), Justice Aloysius Katsina-Alu, were appointed by the president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Ayo Isa Salami, in spite ofa pending suit challenging the appointment due to Salamis probe by the National Judicial Council for alleged corruption.Katsina-Alu is also being probed by the NJC panel headed by the former president of the Court of Appeal, Justice Umaru Abdullahi.It was gathered that the members had been dispatched to their respective states of operations and would commence sitting once petitions were filed by aggrieved politicians.Nigerian Tribune was also told by a highly-placed source within the system that sittings of the tribunals would not take place where petitions were not filed.The South-West was fingered as one of the zones where the tribunals might be doing little or nothing.The Electoral Act stipulates that the tribunals should be in place before the conduct of the general election with the president of the Court of Appeal empowered to set them up.However, some prominent Nigerians and civil society groups have said that Salami should not have been allowed to empanel the tribunals on moral ground since he was still being investigated for alleged corruption over the panels he set up to handle the 2007 general election.In order to ensure their independence, members of the election petition tribunals nationwide had also been reportedly barred from accepting logistics support from the state governors during the hearing of petitions arising from the general election.The leadership of the judiciary, Nigerian Tribune learnt, specifically ordered members of the election tribunals not to accept accommodation offers from the state governors and had warned of dire consequences if the order was flouted.
Click here to read full news..