Nyesom Wike and the Independent National Electoral Commission, on Friday asked the state Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja to dismiss the petition filed by the All Progressive Party and its candidate in the poll, Dr. Dakuku Peterside.

Wike and INEC predicated their prayer for the dismissal of the petition on the petitioners’ failure to pay a fee of N100 for the filing for the issuance of pre-hearing notice, Form TF007.

But counsel for Peterside and the APC, who are through their petition, challenging the declaration of Wike as the winner of the April 11 poll, Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), asked the Justice Muazu Pindiga-led tribunal to dismiss the respondents’ application for lacking in merit.

Olujinmi insisted that since the application for the pre-hearing notice was by a letter to the Secretary to the tribunal, his clients were not liable to pay for filing fee as such was not specifically provided for in any law.

He maintained that Paragraph 2 of the TF007 only made provision for the submission of the form and not filing which would have warranted payment of filing fee.

He added that even if his clients were required to pay the fee, failure to do so could only amount to a mere irregularity which the tribunal could direct them to pay at any time.

He also maintained that his clients, like other pa?rties to the petition, had made a deopsit of N500,000 security fund to the tribunal, so the tribunal could easily deduct N100 from the said money if it was a must that the N100 fee be paid.

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