On Thursday, June 22, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and his party will conclude their case in their joint appeal contesting the proclamation of Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
According to a pre-hearing report, the petitioners were supposed to close their case on Tuesday, but their lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), informed the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that they had lost two days out of the days allotted to them and requested that the two days be returned.
The petitioners, who said they would call 100 witnesses during the pre-hearing session, have only called 25 so far.
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Counsel for the petitioners told reporters that they might call an additional five witnesses to bring the total to 30.
Uche stated that some of the materials to be presented in the next two days would replace 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.
Earlier in the proceedings, the petitioners complained about the problems they had in obtaining Certified True Copies (CTC) of documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in support of their joint case contesting Tinubu’s election.
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During the petition’s resumed hearing, counsel for Atiku and his party informed the court that obtaining materials from INEC is analogous to obtaining weapons from an opponent.
He told the Court that obtaining papers from INEC was difficult, but he praised the electoral body’s legal team, led by Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), for their assistance in obtaining some of the documents from INEC.
Uche requested a halt in the proceedings so that the petitioners could mark the avalanche of documents made accessible to them on Tuesday morning.
Meanwhile, INEC’s lawyer, Kemi Pinhero (SAN), informed the court in his submissions that INEC employees brought the documents from all across the nation and that the petitioners had yet to pay for the documents’ certification.
He stated that the petitioners must establish a schedule of papers to be submitted.
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The court rose for about 10 minutes to allow the petitioners to gather their thoughts and figure out how to proceed with the documents.
When the parties reconvened, Uche informed the court that they had agreed that the petitioners bring the documents back, establish a schedule of documents, and mark them for presenting on Wednesday.
The court’s five-member panel of Justices, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, deferred the hearing in the case to Wednesday, June 21.
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