Failure by Atiku to Serve Notices on Witnesses Forced Tribunal to Adjourn

Failure by Atiku to Serve Notices on Witnesses Forced Tribunal to Adjourn

…Peter Obi Presents Additional 19 Documents Refusal of other parties to allow the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) and his party to present three subpoenaed witnesses on Wednesday forced the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) to adjourn proceedings to Thursday. The three subpoenaed witnesses were ad hoc staff of the Independent National

…Peter Obi Presents Additional 19 Documents

Refusal of other parties to allow the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic party (PDP) and his party to present three subpoenaed witnesses on Wednesday forced the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) to adjourn proceedings to Thursday.

The three subpoenaed witnesses were ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). But counsels to the three respondents, Mr. A.B. Mahmoud Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) counsel to INEC, Chief Akin Olujinmi SAN(President Bola Ahmed Tinubu) and Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN(the All Progressives Congress (APC) ) all opposed the witnesses mounting the witness box.

Their reason: they were served the witness statement on oath on Wednesday morning. According to the INEC counsel, he would need to go through the statements, consult with his client who would actually need to confirm whether the subpoenaed witnesses actually worked for it.

Chief Olujinmi, counsel to President Tinubu,who said he was served the statements on Wednesday morning said he would need time to read the statements. Prince Fagbemi said:” we were served about 20 minutes ago with five depositions, I have not gone through them and I need to”.

Chief Uche SAN who said nobody has been taken unawares and nobody is handicapped pleaded with the court to allow one of the witnesses to give his evidence.

Presiding Judge of the Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, while trying to be considerate, proposed standing down trial for 30 minutes to enable respondents look at the documents and thereby cross examine the first subpoenaed witness.

The court, however, agreed with the respondents and adjourned the case to Thursday.

Earlier, lead counsel to the PDP, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, after the admittance of exhibits from 10 local governments in Kogi State, called in one of his listed witnesses who gave evidence on how INEC failed to transmit results real time “as promised”.

Hon. Ndubuisi Nwobu(PW 11) from Anambra State, told the Court that election went smoothly in most polling units he visited including where he cast his vote but “magic started happening” at the Ward Collation Centers.

According to him, results of the election were entered into the forms EC8A at the polling units but were not transmitted real time into the IReV because of the failure of the BVAS machines.

He told the panel that but for his intervention, some staff of INEC would have been attacked due to their inability to upload results real time.

“There was no real time transmission of results as we were promised by INEC”, he said.

Meanwhile, further hearing into the petition has been shifted till June 8.

Also yesterday,Mr. Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP) tendered 19 documents to consolidate its case against the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
The documents include Form EC8B in four states, Form EC8C in 13 states and Form EC8C which is the national result.

Specifically, Mr Obi through his counsel, Prof Paul Anachebe presented Form EC8B in Ebonyi state (13 Local Government Areas LGAs),Kaduna state (four LGAs), Oyo state (four LGAs) and Nasarawa state (one LGA).

The Form EC8C are from Bayelsa (8LGAs),Benue(23 LGAs), Cross River state(18 LGAs), Ebonyi (10 LGAs),Edo(18 LGAs), Lagos (20 LGAs) and Niger (25 LGAs).

Others are Niger (25 LGAs)Ondo (18LGAs), Oyo (33 LGAs), Rivers (23LGAs), Sokoto (23 LGAs) ,Ekiti (16LGAs) and Delta (25 LGAs).

The Petitioners also tendered Form EC8C being the National result.
Although all the respondents opposed the admissibility of Forms EC8B,EC8C, they did not object to the admissibility of Form EC8C.

The case was adjourned till Thursday.

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