On Wednesday, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate in the previous election, Atiku Abubakar, called their first subpoenaed witness at the Presidential Election Petition Court. They are challenging the outcome of the presidential election that resulted in the victory of Tinubu as the president.
During the hearing, the PDP’s counsel, Chris Uche, informed the court that the petitioners were ready to present their first subpoenaed witness, who was an Adhoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
However, the respondents’ counsels, representing INEC, Bola Tinubu, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), objected to taking the witness’s testimony.
Before the witness could even take the oath, INEC’s counsel, A.B. Mahmoud, objected to proceeding with the hearing, stating that he had only been served with the witness’s statement that morning and needed time to study it for a thorough cross-examination.
Tinubu’s lawyer, Akin Olujimi, and the APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, shared the same view and opposed the petitioners’ move.
In response, Uche argued that there was nothing significant in the witness’s statement that would warrant an adjournment. He requested the court to allow at least one of the subpoenaed witnesses to testify to make efficient use of the allocated time.
The Chairman of the five-man panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, proposed a 30-minute break to allow the respondents to review the documents and cross-examine the first subpoenaed witness.
However, INEC insisted that the witness could not testify that day because he was an Adhoc staff and needed to consult INEC’s records for proper preparation.
Following the respondents’ assertions, Uche requested an adjournment until the next day, June 8, to call the three subpoenaed witnesses.
Prior to this, the PDP and Atiku had presented their 11th witness, the Anambra PDP chairman, Ndubuisi Nwobu, for testimony.
During cross-examination by APC’s counsel, Nwobu stated that the results were disputed at lower levels before reaching the state level, and they collated the results because they had no other alternative.
When asked if he had included this information in his sworn witness statement, Nwobu explained that it was not possible to include every detail in the statement.
It is worth noting that Vice President Kashim Shettima was also present at the meeting.