Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State, yesterday entered his defence at the state’s governorship election petition tribunal sitting in Makurdi, following a petition by the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate, Emmanuel Jime, challenging the outcome of the last gubernatorial election in the state. Ortom Ortom of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, defeated the APC candidate at the gubernatorial election with 434,473 votes against the 345,155 votes scored by the APC candidate. Not satisfied with the outcome of the election, the APC candidate and his party approached the tribunal alleging irregularities.

Ortom’s defence was filed at exactly 7:30pm by Sebastine Hon and Edward Ashiekaa both Seniour Advocates of Nigeria, who led a team of lawyers to the tribunal. At the end of the process, the governor’s lead counsel, Sebastine Hon expressed optimism about the victory of his client noting that the legal team had filed a rock-solid defence.t He said, we have sufficiently met their case and we are positively very hopeful of victory at the end of the day.” On his part, the Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice Benue State, Michael Gusa who led the team to the tribunal expressed confidence in the defence put together by the legal team adding “we have briefed Hon and his team of lawyers and we believe that he has done justice to the petition and we are hopeful and by the grace of God we will be victorious.

(Vanguard)