ABUJA— President Bola Tinubu is scheduled to begin his defence on June 30 against the petitions aiming to remove him from office. The Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, in Abuja, has announced that all three petitioners will conclude their case on Friday.Former Vice President and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, along with former Anambra State Governor and Labour Party (LP) candidate, Mr. Peter Obi, as well as the Allied Peoples Movement (APM), are challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the presidential election held on February 25. Atiku and Obi assert that they were the rightful winners of the presidential contest, while the APM is requesting the court to invalidate all votes received by Tinubu due to his alleged disqualification.The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) has put forward the argument that Bola Tinubu’s candidacy should be invalidated based on Section 131(c) and 142 of the 1999 Constitution, as amended, due to the withdrawal of Mr. Ibrahim Masari, who was initially nominated as the Vice-Presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC). The petitioners, including Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, Mr. Peter Obi, and the APM, are collectively seeking the revocation of the Certificate of Return issued to Tinubu by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).A total of 151 witnesses are expected to be called upon in the ongoing legal proceedings. Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, represented by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, plans to present 100 witnesses to support his case, while Mr. Peter Obi intends to call upon 50 witnesses. The Allied Peoples Movement (APM), relying on documentary evidence, will present only one witness to substantiate their case.
In May, the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel consolidated all the petitions and provided a three-week period for the litigants to present their arguments. Initially, the petitioners were expected to conclude their case on Tuesday, as per the pre-hearing report issued by the panel. However, the court granted a two-day extension to the litigants.Up to this point, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has presented 25 witnesses in court, while Mr. Peter Obi has called seven witnesses and submitted several documentary exhibits as evidence.
During the recent court session, Atiku’s lawyer, Uche, SAN, informed the court that his client may summon an additional five witnesses, bringing the total number to 30 witnesses. Uche emphasized that the remaining days would be used to present documents that would account for the evidence of the remaining 70 witnesses.
However, Uche expressed his concern regarding the difficulties they faced in obtaining Certified True Copies (CTC) of the requested documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), despite the court’s appeal for cooperation.According to Uche, obtaining documents from INEC was akin to requesting weapons from an opponent in a war. He expressed his frustration, stating that his client had requested Form EC8A series, which comprises polling unit results for all 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). However, they had only received 14 batches of the requested forms thus far, and even those were not properly sorted.
After initially standing down the proceedings for 10 minutes to organize the documents, the court reconvened. Atiku’s lawyer then requested an adjournment until Wednesday, explaining that his team needed time to prepare a schedule for the documents to be tendered as evidence, ensuring ease of identification.
In response, a panel member admonished Uche, stating that sentiments should not guide the proceedings, and that evidence of the application made to the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) was lacking.
Furthermore, Mr. Lawrence Bayode, a Deputy Director of INEC’s ICT Department, appeared before the court based on a subpoena issued to the INEC Chairman. He stated that out of the five documents requested by the petitioners, he had only brought two of them.The Justice Tsammani-led panel has adjourned further hearings on the petitions until today, Wednesday. The filename for the related document is “Presidential petition 20-6-2023.”
