On Thursday, President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, APC, vehemently opposed the former Vice President Abubakar Atiku’s attempt to enlist special INEC staff to testify 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 had three INEC ad hoc employees testify under oath about their personal experiences during the February 25 presidential election.
He had expressly asked them to provide an explanation of how the presidential election results were broadcast.
But Tinubu, who was represented by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, objected to using sworn testimony from witnesses in support of Atiku’s appeal at the Presidential Election appeal Court (PEPC).
The President and the APC complained that the ad hoc employees’ remarks had not been front loaded at the time the petition was filed.
Olanipekun, SAN, highlighted multiple legal restrictions that forbade the use of the witnesses in his argument, saying that because Atiku, the petitioner, had subpoenaed them, he should have front-loaded their declarations under oath with the petition.
Due to alleged violations of the Electoral Act of 2022, he requested that the court disqualify the witnesses and suppress their testimony.
Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, who represented INEC, and Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who represented the APC, embraced Tinubu’s arguments against the summoned witnesses.
Chris Uche SAN, Atiku’s lead attorney, argued that the objections were completely wrong and misguided and urged the court to dismiss them.
Uche asserted that the objections made by Tinubu, the APC, and INEC were a premeditated ruse intended to stall the legal process.
The senior attorney maintained that because the subpoenaed witnesses had not yet been called, their statements could not have been included with the petition at the time it was.
He urged the Court to overrule the three respondents’ objections and rule that they are not the ordinary extra witnesses that the law Olanipekun quoted contemplates.
Even though the Court adjourned to make a decision, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, the presiding justice, declared upon the court’s resumption that a decision regarding the objections had been deferred.
However, Justice Tsammani directed that the three witnesses who had been subpoenaed be called to testify and that the respondents be allowed to cross-examine them.
