The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, says he has lined up 50 witnesses to prove his petition against the All Progressives Congress (APC) Bola Tinubu’s victory as Nigeria’s president-elect.
Others sued in the case – Mr Tinubu, the APC, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) – also gave the numbers of witnesses they would call at a hearing of the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja on Saturday.
The lawyers to the parties spoke while giving the court their reports of the court’s pre-hearing sessions, which began about two weeks ago.
The reports given by the lawyers are subject to the approval of the court. The court’s ruling on the proposals will herald a critical stage in the hearing where parties will call witnesses to testify. The witnesses will also be cross-examined by adverse parties’ legal teams.
Highlighting the pre-hearing session report on Saturday, Mr Obi’s lawyer, Awa Kalu, told the court that his client would need seven weeks to substantiate his claims of electoral fraud against INEC’s conduct of the 25 February presidential election.
“I was at a meeting this morning with the respondents (APC, INEC and Mr Tinubu’s legal team),” Mr Kalu, a law professor and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) told the court.
“In terms of the scheduling, the petitioner will require seven weeks,” Mr Kalu said.
He said Mr Obi’s legal team was still having a “few hiccups” with INEC in trying to have a forensic examination of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.
But INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, a SAN, disagreed with Mr Kalu’s submission concerning difficulty in accessing electoral documents.
“We have 50 witnesses. We have also agreed that our star witnesses will need 30 minutes to testify excluding demonstration of any electronic evidence,” Mr Kalu said.
He further explained, “star witnesses will be cross-examined for 20 minutes, while 10 minutes will be for other witnesses and 10 minutes for each of the respondents to cross-examine the witnesses.”
INEC, APC, Tinubu assemble 30 witnesses
Abubakar Mahmoud, INEC’s lawyer said he would need seven days to call two witnesses.
But Mr Mahmoud, a SAN, said “there has not been any agreement between” INEC “and the petitioners” concerning the procedure for adjudicating on the petition.
Mr Tinubu’s lawyer, Roland Otaru, said his client would need nine days to present 21 witnesses to defend his case.
Mr Otaru, a SAN said the duration for witnesses that was adopted in PDP’s petition would apply in Mr Obi’s.
APC’s lawyer, Adeniyi Akintola, said his client would call seven witnesses to defend its victory at the polls.
This makes a total of 30 proposed witnesses lined up by the respondents to Mr Obi’s petition.
Mr Akintola, however, faulted the Labour Party’s list of witnesses. He said the petitioner has only frontloaded three witnesses whereas it proposes to call 50 witnesses.
Meanwhile, the proposals by parties in the petitions are subject to the approval of the court.
The five-member panel of the court led by Haruna Tsammani, directed lawyers to parties to address it on consolidation of the pending three petitions.
Mr Tsammani adjourned the suit until 22 May.
The court has up to September to deliver its decisions on the three petitions pending before it.
Saturday’s hearing was marked by protest near the court premises, with the demonstrators holding placards and changing songs expressing electoral fraud messages.
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