INEC and others in the court object to the PDP witness

At the Presidential Election Petition Court, the Peoples Democratic Party and Atiku Abubakar, its candidate for president in the most recent election, called their first summoned witness on Wednesday.

Atiku and the PDP are contesting the results of the presidential election that resulted in Tinubu being elected president in a petition with the filing number CA/PEPC/05/2023.

Chris Uche, SAN, the PDP’s legal representative, informed the court at the resumed hearing that the petitioners planned to call an Adhoc staff member of the Independent National Electoral Commission as their first subpoenaed witness.

The All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, and INEC’s legal counsel, however, opposed to the witness’ testimony being taken in the case.

A.B. Mahmoud, SAN, the INEC attorney, rose to object to the witness’s hearing as soon as he entered the witness box and just before the witness could take his oath.

He told the court that the witness’s statement had only been served on him this morning and that he would need to review it in order to conduct a comprehensive cross-examination.

Akin Olujimi, SAN, the attorney for Tinubu, and Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the attorney for the APC, both had the same opinion and were opposed to the petitioners’ action.

In response, Uche contended that the witness’s remark was not odd enough to call for an adjournment.

He begged the judge to call at least one of the witnesses who had been subpoenaed so they might spend their given time wisely.

Justice Haruna Tsammani, the chairman of the five-person PEPC panel, sought to adjourn the trial for 30 minutes so that respondents could review the materials and then cross-examine the first subpoenaed witness.

Nevertheless, INEC claimed that the witness could not be questioned today because he “is said to be an Adhoc staff of the commission” and as a result, would need to visit INEC’s records in order to adequately prepare.

After the respondents’ claims, Uche petitioned the court to postpone the hearing until tomorrow, June 8, so that the three witnesses who had been subpoenaed could be called.

Earlier, Ndubuisi Nwobu, the head of the PDP in Anambra, was called as the PDP and Atiku’s 11th witness to testify in court.

During cross-examination by counsel for the APC, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, the witness informed the court that the results were challenged at the lower levels before they reached the state level.

He continued by saying that they had no choice but to compile the results.

When questioned about whether he included that in his under oath witness testimony, he responded that it was impossible to include every detail.

Kashim Shettima, the vice president, is also present for the conference.