C’River election tribunal: PDP, APC to present twenty witnesses each
From Aniekan Aniekan, Calabar
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) have each agreed to present 20 witnesses to prove their cases in the on-going governorship elections petition tribunal in Calabar.
They stated this during the pre-hearing session of the tribunal which commenced this morning at the hearing of the case.
According to the agreed position on the schedule to proceed by the parties, the petitioner and the 1st respondent will call 20 witnesses which comprise 17 regular and 3 supoboned.
The second and third respondents will call 12 witnesses comprising 3 regular and 9 supoboned while the fourth respondent will call 8 witnesses comprising 7 regular and 1 supoboned.
In addition, the examination in Chief will not be more than 30 minutes for the witnesses and a reexamination, if any will only last for ten minutes and each party has also agreed to state its case within six weeks.
Justice Oken Inneh, the head of the tribunal who consented to the position of the parties urged counsels to comply with the direction.
She ordered that all processes must be filled by the 13th of June 2023 and parties should come back on the 19th of June.
Speaking at the end of the day’s proceedings, counsel to the PDP, Dr. Joshua Musa, SAN, said ” today is supposed to be continuation of pre-hearing but tribunal observed that so many applications have been filed with written addresses in excess of the permissible limit.
“So they requested that all applications be reduced so we also respond with reduced reply within the given time frame”, he said.
On his part, counsel to Governor Otu, Professor Mike Ozekhome, SAN, said “the tribunal has noted the practice direction for this kind of petition particularly in Paragraph 5 to the effect that no new interlocutory injunction or written address shall exceed ten pages and the reply five pages.
“All counsels must abide by this practice direction.
“Tribunal has ruled that everything needed to be done and processes needed to be filed must all be done before the next adjournment date”, he said.
The petition, with suit number EPT/CT/GOV/03M/2023 was instituted at the instance of the PDP Gubernatorial candidate Professor Sandy Onor.
Professor Onor is praying the tribunal to nullify the outcome of the just concluded gubernatorial elections in the state.
