•38 To Testify For Tinubu, 38 For APC, Two For INEC
•Obi, LP To Call 50 Witnesses
NO fewer than 180 witnesses have been lined up to testify for and against the petition filed by former Vice President and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the 25th February 2023 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar against Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the declared winner of the exercise.
While Atiku has lined up 100 witnesses to prove his case, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has two witnesses while the president-elect, Bola Tinubu and his political party, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has 39 witnesses each to defend their victory.
In all of these, Atiku told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that he needs only three weeks to call his witnesses to prove that the president-elect, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu was wrongly returned by INEC as the winner of the disputed election.
In their joint petition marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023, Atiku and PDP are urging the court to, among other reliefs, withdraw the Certificate of Return that was issued to the president-elect by INEC.
The petitioners maintained that the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election was “invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022”.
They further argued that Tinubu’s election was invalid by reason of corrupt practices, insisting that he was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the election.
Atiku further prayed the court to declare him the winner of the election, having secured the second-highest number of lawful votes cast at the election.
At the resumed proceedings on Saturday, lead counsel to the petitioners, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), disclosed that among the 100 witnesses are experts and others that would be summoned by the court to give evidence.
“We may not even exhaust the three weeks because the issues are getting narrower,” Mr Uche added.
On its part, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, through its lawyer, Abubakar Mahmood, SAN, said it would only call two witnesses.
Meanwhile, the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi plan to call 50 witnesses in prosecuting their petition before the Tribunal.
Their lawyer, Awa Kalu (SAN) announced this during the ongoing pre-hearing session in the petition.
Kalu said his clients will require seven weeks to present its case because they are still experiencing some hiccups with dealings with INEC.
He said the petitioners are yet to conduct the court-ordered forensic examination of the BVAS devices used for the election and have yet to receive some of the documents requested from INEC.
Lawyer to INEC said his client plans to call five witnesses and conduct its case within seven days.
Lawyer to Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettma, Roland Otaru (SAN) said his clients will call 21 witnesses with the exclusion of other expert witnesses to be called.
Otaru said although the law allows a respondent 10 days to conduct its case, they intend to use nine days.
Lawyer to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Adeniyi Akintola (SAN) said his client plans to invite seven witnesses, excluding subpoenaed witnesses.
Akintola said the APC plans to conduct its case within nine days.
Eighteen-Eleven Media