THE legal team of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, was prevented from calling a subpoenaed electoral officer to testify before the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja on Wednesday.
The five-member panel of the court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani had to postpone the witness’ testimony until Thursday following stiff opposition from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Bola Tinubu, and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Atiku, who filed his petition before the court to challenge President Tinubu’s victory in the 25th February presidential election, had called 11 witnesses to prove his case before his lawyers invited the electoral officer to the witness box on Wednesday.
Counsel to the petitioners, Chris Uche, SAN, invited the subpoenaed witness to testify as his clients’ 12th witness midway into Wednesday’s proceedings. The witness was said to be a member of INEC’s ad hoc staff involved in the conduct of the 25th February presidential election.
In reaction, lawyers representing the respondents – INEC, Tinubu, and APC – who immediately appeared unsettled with the appearance of the witness took their turns to object to the taking of the evidence of the witness.
They said it surprised them as they had yet to have the opportunity to review the witness’ written statement, which they said was only served on them Wednesday morning.
As soon as the witness entered the witness box, INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, objected to the witness giving his testimony.
Mahmoud said he was only served with the statement of the witness on Wednesday, and as such, “I have to study the statement in order to do a thorough cross-examination”.
He insisted that the witness could not be taken since he was said to be a member of the electoral body’s ad hoc staff until after confirming the status of the witness from INEC’s records.
Counsel to Tinubu, Akin Olujimi, SAN, and that of the APC, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, said they were served with the witness statement on Wednesday and needed time to peruse it for proper cross-examination.
Uche doggedly pushed for the witness to testify, insisting that a subpoenaed witness’ statement didn’t have to be frontloaded.
Uche pleaded with the court to take at least one of the subpoenaed witnesses, saying there was nothing strange in the statement to warrant an adjournment.
But he met stiff opposition from the respondents’ legal teams, who insisted they had to peruse the witness statements before the concerned witnesses could testify.
Following the respondents’ insistence, Uche urged the court to adjourn until Thursday for the three subpoenaed witnesses to give their testimony.
Earlier, the petitioners called their 11th witness, Ndubisi Nwobu, the PDP Collation Agent for Anambra State.
Nwobu, in his evidence-in-chief, told the court that he was forced to sign Form EC8D because it became evident that if he did not sign, INEC would not give him a copy. Form EC8D is the result sheet for states.
Under cross-examination by INEC’s lawyer, Mahmoud, the witness told the court that although the election was peaceful at his polling unit, INEC officials refused to upload the results to INEC Result Verification Portal (IREV).
“The election went well in my polling unit, and the result was entered, but we insisted that the result be uploaded on IREV; all efforts proved abortive.
“There was no problem at the polling units; it was at the ward level that magic started happening,” the witness said.
He also told the court that he visited about 30 out of the 4,720 polling units in Anambra. State.
Also, while being cross-examined by APC’s lawyer, Fagbemi, the witness told the court that his major grouse with the election was that there was no real-time upload of results on IREV as was promised by the INEC chairman.
The witness also said under cross-examination by Tinubu’s counsel, Olujimi, that the Labour Party won the election in Anambra State.
The presiding justice of the five-member panel, Tsammani, adjourned proceedings until Thursday to allow the respondents to study the witness statements of the subpoenaed witnesses for seamless cross-examination.
The respondents in the petition marked: CA/PEPC/05/2023 are INEC, President Tinubu and the APC.
NAN reports that Atiku and the PDP are before the court to challenge the outcome of the 25 February presidential election on the grounds that it was invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.
The petitioners claimed that President Tinubu was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast during the election. (NAN)
