On Thursday, President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, APC, vehemently opposed the former Vice President Abubakar Atiku’s attempt to enlist ad hoc INEC staff to provide testimony in his petition contesting the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the 2023 presidential election.
In an effort to prove the alleged electoral irregularities, Atiku summoned three INEC ad hoc employees to testify about their first-hand observations of the February 25 presidential election.
He had asked them especially to provide an explanation of how the presidential election results were communicated.
However, Tinubu objected to the use of the witnesses’ sworn testimony. He was represented by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN to be submitted in support of Atiku’s case at the Presidential Election case Court (PEPC).
The President and the APC took issue with the fact that the ad hoc workers’ remarks were not front loaded at the time the petition was filed.
Olanipekun, SAN, contended that since Atiku was the petitioner and had subpoenaed the witnesses, he should have front loaded their testimonies under oath with the petition. He highlighted many legal prohibitions prohibiting the use of the witnesses.
He requested that the court disqualify the witnesses and suppress their testimony due to their alleged violations of the Electoral Act of 2022.
In support of the APC and Abubakar, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, embraced Tinubu’s arguments against the summoned witnesses ,SAN Mahmoud, who represented INEC, appeared.
Atiku’s lead attorney, Chris Uche SAN, requested that the Court dismiss the objections because they were so completely incorrect and misguided.
Uche asserted that the opposition from Tinubu, the APC, and INEC was an intentional ruse to stall the legal process.
The senior attorney maintained that because the subpoenaed witnesses had not yet been summoned at the time the petition was filed, their testimony could not have been front loaded with the petition.
He requested that the court dismiss the three respondents’ objections and rule that they are not the regular extra witnesses mentioned in the Olanipekun-cited law.
Justice Haruna Simon, the court’s presiding justice, issued the decision after the court adjourned Tsammani on resumption, announced that ruling in the objections had been reserved. Justice Tsammani however ordered that the evidence of the three subpoenaed witnesses be taken and the respondents to cross examine them.
