President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress,
APC, on Thursday, vehemently kicked against the bid by the former Vice
President, Abubakar Atiku to engage ad-hoc staff of the Independent National
Electoral Commission, INEC, to give evidence in his petition challenging the
declaration of Tinubu as winner of the 2023 presidential election.
Atiku in the bid to establish the alleged irregularities
against the election had subpoenaed three ad-hoc workers of INEC to give first
hand account of their experiences during the presidential election of February
25.
He had specifically requested them to offer explanations on
how the results of the presidential election results were transmitted.
However, Tinubu, represented by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, objected to the use of statements made on oath by the witnesses to be tendered at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in aid of Atiku’s petition.
The grouse of the President and the APC was that the
statements of the ad-hoc workers were not front loaded at the time of filing
the petition.
Olanipekun, SAN, who cited several provisions of the law
against the use of the witnesses argued that since they were subpoenaed by
Atiku as the petitioner, he ought to have front loaded their statements on oath
along with the petition.
He asked the Court to reject the witnesses and discontenance
their statements on grounds of violating the provisions of the Electoral Act
2022.
Tinubu’s arguments against the subpoenaed witnesses were
adopted by Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who stood for the APC and Abubakar
Mahmoud, SAN, who appeared for INEC.
However, Atiku’s lead counsel, Chris Uche SAN asked the
Court to dismiss the objections on the grounds that they were utterly misplaced
and misconceived.
Uche argued that the objections by Tinubu, APC and INEC were
deliberate ploy designed to delay proceedings.
The senior lawyer insisted that the statements of the
subpoenaed witnesses could not have been front loaded along with the petition
because they had not been summoned at the time of filing the petition.
He asked the Court to discontenance the objections of the
three respondents and hold that they are not regular additional witnesses
envisaged in the law cited by Olanipekun.
Although the Court stood down for ruling, the Presiding
Justice of the Court, Justice Haruna Simon 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.
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