Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) 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 complained 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 opponent.
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 documents.
Uche requested a stand-down in the proceedings so that the petitioners may mark the mountain of documents that was provided to them on Tuesday morning.
In the meantime, INEC’s legal representative, Kemi Pinhero (SAN), informed the court in his submissions that personnel from the organization had brought the documents from all across the nation and that the petitioners still owed money for the certification of the papers.
He stated that it was the petitioners’ responsibility to create a schedule of the documents they wished to submit.
The court left its seat for roughly 10 minutes to allow the petition’s parties to discuss their options and decide how to proceed with the documents.
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 petition hearing was adjourned to Wednesday, June 21 by the court’s five-member justice panel, which is chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani.
