Petitioners conclude presentations at PEPT, as INEC to kick off defence proceedings from July 3
Going by the schedule of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) sitting at the Court of Appeal Headquarters in Abuja, the petitioners; Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and its candidate in the February 25 election, Atiku Abubakar, along with the Labour Party (LP) and Peter Obi, its flagbearer in the same poll, have now concluded their presentations before the court.
Last Friday’s proceedings marked the final day for presentation and tendering of documents, calling up witnesses to testify before the court backing up their petitions challenging the emergence of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner of the February 25 election, according to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC ) on March 1, 2023.
According to the timeline served to all the parties before, full hearing had run from May 30 after the conclusion of one week of pre-trial hearings. The petitioners (PDP and (LP) had three weeks to present their cases through documents and witnesses. Two other political parties had withdrawn their petitions, while the third had opted to get the Supreme Court judgement details on a mater which its petition had relied on (the Kashim Shettima double nomination) before proceeding.
From, Saturday, June 24, the respondents will begin their defence in response to the admitted evidence in court tendered by the petitioners. The respondents; INEC, Boa Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and APC, are expected to through their counsels commence providing reasons for their objections raised over exhibits admitted by the PEPT and tendered by the petitioners.
The schedule has listed INEC to begin its defence from June 24 to 29, while the Tinubu and Shettima will respond from June 30 to July 5, and the APC will close respondents’ defence from July 6 to 10.
The PEPT will finally close door to any more evidence on July 10 also.
Respondents will make their closing argument before the court on July 21, while the petitioners are expected to make same on July 29.
However, while the respondents reply on August 4, adoption of all arguments in addresses by the court follows on August 5.
The PEPT justices will notify parties of its ruling afterwards.
During Friday’s close of proceeding for the Labour Party and Peter Obi, the petitioners called up their 10th star witness, Yunusa Tanko for cross examination which was not done at Thursday’s hearing due to time.
Tanko is a member of the Labour Party, LP Situation Room and an Accountant by profession.
His witness statement on oath, receipts and letters sent to INEC were all tendered, not objected to by respondents, were admitted and tagged as exhibits by the court earliet on Thursday.
Tanko had identified all the INEC Forms EC8A, B, C, D, E & CTCs of blurred iREV results which were tendered in evidence.
Tanko served as the chief spokesperson and Director of Media for Labour Party’s Presidential Campaign In his testimony, Tanko said on February 25, 2023 he voted in his Polling Unit (PU) in Gawaki, Abuja, after which he went to the LP situation room. He also served as a Polling Unit (PU) agent.
An exhibit, which is a Federal High Court ruling, which summarily says INEC is at liberty to decide whether to collate results manually or electronically was tendered and Yunusa Tanko said he is not aware of the said ruling.
During cross examination, a PU result was brought out for Tanko to read to the court but he could not, stating that it was blurred and mutilated in its entirety. He, however, went on to tell the court that LP had a total of 133,00 PU agents and there were 176,974 PU units but had some agents from other parties like ADC.
According he left the National Conscience Party (NCP) to join LP before Peter Obi and primaries held on 30th May, 2023
He confirmed that LP won in his PU and came 3rd nationwide; “They won 5 South Eastern States and Anambra with 95.7% votes. LP also won 12 states nationwide but would have been more if votes were properly counted,” he said.
On the unlawful votes allocated to Tinubu, Tanko said the expert witness, Chibuike Ugboke, had spoken on it and he (Yunusa) did not check them, but confirmed several documents and dates received, even as he admitted that some were not tendered due to time but may be done subsequently.
Tanko affirmed that some of the issues brought to court are about transmission, ballot box snatching/violence and double nomination.
An 11th witness called up by the Labour Party/Obi team, identified himself as Emmanuel Yaro, who served as a Presiding Officer (PO) of a PU.
However, the adoption of this witness was objected to by respondents, who said reasons will be given in final address but his subpoena was not objected to.
At first, Yaro did not state whether he had issues during voter accreditation or not but later said he successfully used BVAS to accredit. R
“Results were counted and recorded but there were issues uploading them,” he said. He added that he subsequently reported to his supervisor who told him to take it to the collation centre. He signed results manually and party agents also signed and had their copies.
There was no reexamination by respondents
The PEPT Justice, Haruna Tsammani adjourned hearing till Monday July 3, 2023 when the respondents are expected to kick-off their defence starting with INEC.
Earlier Friday, the PEPT had admitted in evidence a transcript in aid of admission into the Chicago State University made by South West College in the name of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was identified as a female gender.
Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar had tendered the document to prove the allegations in their joint petition challenging Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
Other documents tendered and in evidence and admitted as exhibits by the court are a certified true copy (CTC) of a certificate supposedly issued to Tinubu by the Chicago State University, a Discharge Certificate issued by the National Youth Services Corps (NYSC) in the name of Tinubu Bola Adekunle, (not Bola Ahmed Tinubu) Party membership card and certificate of service from Mobil Oil Nigeria Plc.
Other documents tendered by the petitioners, urging the court to nullify Tinubu’s victory include; the authorised judgment of the USA District Court for criminal forfeiture of assets of Tinubu, as well as a printout of a Guinean International passport belonging to the said Tinubu.
Also tendered documents were a certificate of compliance, and a witness statement on oath.
The lead counsel to the petitioners, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), while leading the 27th witness of the petitioners, Mr Mike Enahoro-Eba, subpoenaed to testify in court, tendered the documents through the witness, who is an Abuja-based human rights activist and public interest lawyer.
Counsels to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), Tinubu, Emmanuel Ukala (SAN) and the APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) all objected to the admissibility of the documents as tendered.
However, in spite of the stiff opposition, Chairman of the Court, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, admitted all the documents as exhibits.
The subpoenaed witness, Mr Mike Enahoro-Eba was cross-examined by counsels to INEC, Tinubu, and APC, respectively.
The petitioners, earlier in the proceedings, tendered certified true copies of Form EC8As, being results of the presidential election from polling units from six states of the Federation.
A breakdown of the documents are, Form EC8As from 25 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Delta state, Forms EC8As from 13 LGAs of Ebonyi state, Form EC8As from 18 LGAs of Edo, from 17 LGAs of Enugu, from 27 LGAs of Imo state and Form EC8As from 21 LGAs of Kogi state.
The court, however, admitted the documents and marked them as exhibits.
Counsel to PDP and Atiku Mr Chris Uche SAN applied for the closing of the case and expressed gratitude for the time allotted them to present their case.
Consequently, Justice Haruna Simon Tsamani adjourned to Monday, July 3, 2023, for the respondents (INEC, Tinubu, Shettima, and APC) to commence their defence.
