For the third time within a week, judges, lawyers, politicians and members of the public at the Ekiti State Election Petitions Tribunal yesterday watched a video clip of how three journalists were brutalised by suspected Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) thugs at the Government House.
The tribunal had earlier on watched clips of how election observers were beaten up by suspected PDP thugs.
The journalists, who testified before the five-man panel of justices hearing the dispute over the April 25 governorship rerun election, said their "offence" was that they discovered illegal thumb-printing of ballot papers by the thugs inside a small room in the Government House.
The video of the assault on the journalists who came to cover the rerun from Rivers State was shown by a witness, Mr. Busuyi Adesokan.
It was admitted as an exhibit by the tribunal which dismissed the respondents’ objection.
Testifying yesterday before the tribunal, one of the journalists, Mr. Gospel Osiri, Petitioner Witness 41 (PW 41), who works for The National Guide newspapers, broke down and wept as he watched how he was beaten by thugs in the Government House.
It was the continuation of the hearing of the petition filed by the Action Congress (AC) candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi, who is challenging the declaration of the PDP’s Mr. Olusegun Oni as governor on May 5 by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The Tribunal Chairman, Mr. Justice Hamma Barka, in a ruling overruled the respondents’ objections to the admissibility of the video clip marked Exhibit 20, stressing that it was pleaded and frontloaded by the petitioners in accordance with Section 1 (1) of the Practice Direction.
Tendering the video
clip, Adesokan, PW 38, told the tribunal that he recorded the attack on reporters when he visited his brother at the Government House.
He said he used a small camera to record the incident after which he transferred it to the Video Compact Disc (VCD).
AC counsel Chief Anthony Adeniyi requested that the video clip be shown for all to see.
The court watched the horror visited on the journalists by the suspected PDP thugs who slapped, beat, kicked and inflicted injuries on the hapless journalists for stumbling on the thumb-printing of ballot papers.
A former woman media aide to Oni was seen in the video as one of the supervisors of the attack on the reporters.
From the video watched at the tribunal, the journalists were forced into a small living room in the Government House where all forms of torture were administered on them. They were interrogated by a former woman media assistant to Oni.
The third witness, Mr. Itogo Ofem, PW 39, who works for Verite newspapers in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, identified their tormentors as PDP thugs and Oni’s supporters.
Ofem revealed that their mission in the Government House was to see the Chairman of the Media and Publicity Committee of the Segun Oni Campaign Organisation (SOCO) when the thugs numbering about 50 attacked them and made away with their personal effects.
He said although they explained their mission in the Government House to the thugs, they were not ready to listen to them, adding that they were dragged into a small room where they were beaten by the thugs who branded them as "AC spies".
Ofem told the tribunal that some State Security Service (SSS) operatives came to their rescue and whisked them to their office.
They were subjected to another round of interrogation before they were released.
He said they were later taken to the Government House Clinic for initial medical attention before they were referred to the University Teaching Hospital in Ado-Ekiti.
When being cross-examined by the respondents’ counsel, Ofem said: "We were beaten because we saw a room in the Government House where some PDP members were thumb-printing ballot papers meant for the rerun and because of this, we were beaten and traumatised by the PDP thugs."
Asked whether Oni was there when they were being beaten, Ofem replied that the governor sent messages through the former media aide which, to him, presupposes that the governor knew of the attack on them.
Ofem added that despite the attack on them by the thugs, they still proceeded to Ifaki-Ekiti to monitor the election.
He said they met the same set of thugs who attacked them at the Government House in the town, which is the ancestral home of the governor.
The witness noted that the thugs, who were led by a man simply identified as Ijakoko, did not allow them to monitor the election at a polling unit very close to the town’s roundabout.
Ofem said he had no relationship with the AC but told the tribunal that the party sent a copy of the VCD of the attack on them to their organisations, a development which prompted their editors to direct that they should testify at the tribunal.
Earlier at the sitting, the alleged plot to remove Justice Barka as tribunal chairman featured.
Justice Barka: "When I read of it on the internet, the first thing I said was that ‘Hallelujah, thank God I am going home’."
The issue was raised by Oni’s counsel, Mr. Adebayo Adenipekun (SAN). The tribunal chair said he had been directing the proceedings at the tribunal according to the provisions of the laws.
He said before he got to the state, he had been warned that Ekiti is a peculiar environment.
Justice Barka said he read the reports of the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mr. Michael Aondoakaa (SAN) and the PDP denying their alleged involvement in the plot, adding that he is not moved by media reports.
Reacting to complaints from some quarters over the report of the reaction of the Ekiti in Diaspora to the alleged move to sack him in The Nation, Justice Barka said he loves reading the paper.
Justice Barka said: "I love reading The Nation and I pray that the owners of the paper will peruse the publications and see that people like me will not stop reading the newspaper."
The hearing continues today
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