Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) nominee for president, and his party will conclude their argument in their joint appeal on June 22 disputing the announcement of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election on February 25.
According to a pre-hearing report, the petitioners were scheduled to conclude their case on Tuesday, but their lead attorney, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), informed the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that they had lost two of the days allotted to them and pleaded for the return of those two days.
The petitioners have only submitted 25 witnesses thus far, despite stating to the court during the pre-hearing conference that they would call 100 witnesses.
Speaking with reporters, the petitioners’ attorney suggested that they might bring an additional five witnesses to make a total of 30 witnesses.
According to Uche, some of the materials that will be presented over the course of the next two days will stand in for the remaining 70 witnesses.
“We are closing our case on Thursday, it was supposed to end today (Tuesday) but because we lost two days, one of which was the June 12 public holiday, the court graciously extended our time by two days”, Uche told newsmen after the proceedings.
The petitioners bemoaned their inability to obtain Certified True Copies (CTC) of documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to support their joint petition contesting Tinubu’s election earlier in the proceedings.
The counsel for Atiku and his party told the court at the petition’s resumed hearing that obtaining materials from INEC was similar to obtaining weapons from an adversary.
He admitted to the court that obtaining papers from INEC was quite challenging, but he did applaud the electoral body’s legal team, led by Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), for helping to obtain some of the records.
Uche requested that the proceedings be stopped so that the petitioners could mark the vast amount of paperwork that was provided to them on Tuesday morning.
In the meantime, INEC’s attorney, Kemi Pinhero (SAN), informed the court during his comments that INEC employees had brought the documents from all across the nation and that the petitioners still owed money for the certification of the documents.
The petitioners must create a timetable of the materials they desire to submit, he said.
For about 10 minutes, the court was in recess to give the petition’s parties time to talk among themselves and come up with a plan for moving the papers ahead.
The parties decided to have the petitioners return with the documents, create a schedule of documents, and mark them for tendering on Wednesday, according to Uche’s report to the court after the parties had regrouped.
The hearing on the case was continued when the five-member justice panel, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, adjourned until Wednesday, June 21.
