President Bola Tinubu is set to present his defence against multiple petitions seeking his removal from office on June 30. This development was revealed by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja, which also announced that all three petitioners would conclude their cases on Friday.
The petitioners challenging Tinubu’s victory in the presidential election held on February 25 include former Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar; former Anambra State Governor and Labour Party (LP) candidate, Mr Peter Obi; as well as the Allied Peoples Movement (APM).
While Atiku and Obi each claim to have won the presidential contest, the APM is urging the court to invalidate all votes received by Tinubu due to his alleged disqualification. All petitioners are seeking the withdrawal of the Certificate of Return issued to Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
A total of 151 witnesses are expected to be called upon during the proceedings. Atiku’s legal team, led by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, stated that they would present 100 witnesses to support their case. Obi, on the other hand, declared that they would summon 50 witnesses, while the APM, relying on documentary evidence, announced they would call only one witness to substantiate their claim.
Consolidating the petitions, the five-member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, on May 23, granted the litigants a three-week period to present their cases. Initially, the petitioners were expected to conclude their cases on Tuesday based on a pre-hearing report issued by the panel. However, the court granted a two-day extension.
Atiku has already presented 25 witnesses, while Obi has called upon seven witnesses and submitted numerous documentary exhibits to the court. Uche, SAN, representing Atiku, informed the court that his client may call an additional five witnesses, reaching a total of 30 witnesses. He assured that the remaining days would cover the evidence of the remaining 70 witnesses through the submission of relevant documents.
However, Uche, SAN, expressed frustration regarding the difficulties faced in obtaining Certified True Copies (CTC) of requested documents from INEC. He compared the process to demanding weapons from an opponent in a war, citing their struggle to acquire Form EC8A series, which consists of polling unit results for all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). To date, they have received only 14 out of the requested batches, and the forms provided were inadequately sorted.
The court initially suspended proceedings for ten minutes to allow for document sorting. Following the recess, Atiku’s lawyer requested an adjournment until Wednesday, to enable his team to prepare a schedule for easier identification and presentation of the remaining documents as evidence.
In response to the petitioners’ challenges regarding document access, a member of the panel rebuked Uzoukwu, SAN, stating, “We are not here to play by sentiments. There is nothing before us to show that the application was made to the RECs.”
Deputy Director of the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department of INEC, Mr. Lawrence Bayode, also appeared before the court. He brought two out of five requested documents as per the second subpoena on the Chairman of the Commission.
Further hearing on the petitions has been adjourned until today, Wednesday, by the Justice Tsammani-led panel.
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