Ortom defends victory before Benue election tribunal

Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue state on Friday entered his defence in the petition filed by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Emmanuel Jime challenging the outcome of the last gubernatorial election at the state’s Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Makurdi.

Ortom, who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated Jime of the APC with 434, 473 votes against the 345, 155 votes scored by his opponent.

Dissatisfied with the outcome of the election, Jime and the APC approached the tribunal alleging irregularities. Counsels to Ortom, Sebastine Hon and Edward Ashiekaa filed the defence on behalf of the governor’s legal team.

At the end of the filing the process, the governor’s lead counsel, Sebastine Hon (SAN) expressed optimism about the victory of his client, declaring that the legal team has filed a rock-solid defence.

He said that “prima facie our defence is rock solid, we have sufficiently met their case and we are positively very hopeful of victory at the end of the day.”

On his part, the state Attorney General and Commissioner for Justice, Michael Gusa who led the team to the tribunal expressed confidence in the defence put together by the legal team, adding that “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.”