PEPC: Atiku, Obi to Close Case against Tinubu Thursday
The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his counterpart in the Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi, will Thursday, close their individual cases challenging the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
This is as the Allied People’s Movement (APM), is expected to call its sole witness and close its case today.
The three petitioners in their separate petitions were seeking the nullification of the election of Tinubu over alleged irregularities, corrupt practices, non-compliance with the electoral laws amongst others.
The APM whose petition would be heard today is claiming that Tinubu ought not to be on the ballot over alleged double nomination of his then running mate, Senator Kashim Shettima and one Kabir Masari, who was initially nominated as a “place holder” Vice President nominee.
Following the consolidations of the three petitions at the close of the pre-hearing session on May 23, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PREPEC), allotted three weeks each to Atiku and Obi to prove their individual petitions.
The three weeks period, which started on May 30 is expected to end on June 20, but following a lost of two days in the hearing of the petitioners case, the five member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani agreed to an extension of two days to make up for time lost.
Consequently, Atiku and Obi would now close their case tomorrow, Thursday June 22.
At yesterday’s proceedings, Atiku’s lawyer, Chief Chris Uche (SAN) drew the court’s attention to the fact that they had lost two days out of the days allotted to them and asked that the two days be returned to them.
Although while Atiku and Obi had hinted at calling 100 and 50 witnesses respectively in proving that the electoral process was manipulated to favour candidate of the All Progressives Congress, they however called 25 and seven respectively.
Both have tendered plethora of documents, which they believed would sway the panel to give them a favourable judgment.
Majority of the documents tendered included Certified True Copies (CTCs) of election results from polling units to wards, local governments, states and final results declared by INEC’s Chairman, Professor Yakubu Mahmood.
The labour party through one of its witnesses tendered over 18,000 blurred exhibits of purported election results from several Local Government Areas ( LGAs) across the country.
The witnesses, which included subpoenaed adhoc staffs of INEC, all gave evidence to support claims of the petitioners that the results of the presidential election, unlike the Senate and House of Representatives results conducted simultaneously was not transmitted real time from the polling units ,using the Bi-modal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) to INEC’s Results Viewing (IReV) portals.
At yesterday’s proceedings, the petitioners were still made frantic efforts to tender additional exhibits especially those from the electoral umpire.
Both Atiku and Obi had prayed the court to issue subpoenaed order on Mahmood to bring in some documents which they claimed was vital to their individual petitions.
They also accused INEC of lack of cooperation in respect of release of electoral documents needed to prove that the February 25 presidential election was not conducted in line with INEC’s regulations and guidelines for the election.
With respect to the Labour Party, the PREPEC, yesterday, challenged its lead counsel, Dr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN to present proof that it served INEC Resident Electoral Commissioners in the 36 States and the FCT summons to provide electoral documents.
According to the court, there seemed to be no evidence that the Labour Party issued subpoenas on the Resident Electoral Commissioners [REC] in the states where it was seeking documents.
According to the court, the party didn’t explore Section 74 of the Electoral Act, which stated that they must, on demand, provide documents within 14 days, pay a fine of two million or imprisonment, or both, for defaulters, adding that the party didn’t lodge a complaint on the delay of documents, and had also failed to apply the penalty clause as stipulated in Section 74, adding that whatever happened between the Labour and INEC was without the involvement of the Court.
Although at the end of cross-examination of a witness, Mrs Clarita Ogah, who in her evidence submitted that there was no technical glitch during the February 25 presidential election on the Amazon Web Service in the six continents.
INEC brought some additional documents before the court in line with the subpoena order on Mahmood.
INEC claimed that some documents requested by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) at the 2023 election, Mr Peter Obi to be presented as exhibits at the Presidential Election Tribunal are non-existent.
Giving evidence before the court, Mr Lawrence Bayode, Deputy Director, ICT at INEC told the court that out of the five documents Obi asked for; two were non-existent, while one was work in progress.
The court, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, adjourned further hearing to Wednesday.
