Atiku to close case challenging Tinubu’s victory at presidential election tribunal, express frustration in obtaining materials from INEC

Atiku to close case challenging Tinubu’s victory at presidential election tribunal, express frustration in obtaining materials from INEC

 

 

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his party will on Thursday, close their case at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).

 

The party and its candidate in the 2023 presidential election had jointly petitioned the election tribunal to challenge the victory of Bola Tinubu.

 

At the resumed hearing of the petition on Tuesday, the leader of their legal team, Chris Uche (SAN) said the team would close their case on Thursday.

 

However, the team expressed frustration over their difficulties in obtaining relevant electoral materials from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

 

According to them, the materials are needed to prosecute their petition against the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the election and subsequently as President.

 

During the preliminary hearing, Uche indicated the intention of the legal team to call 100 witnesses, during the preliminary hearing.

 

He, however, said on Tuesday that they could still call five more witnesses to bring their total number of witnesses to 30.

 

According to him, some of the documents left to be tendered would replace the shortfall of 70 witnesses earlier proposed by the legal team.

 

“We are closing our case on Thursday, it was supposed to end today (Tuesday) but because we lost two days, one of which was the June 12 public holiday, the court graciously extended our time by two days,” Uche told journalists after the proceedings.

 

On Tuesday, Uche tendered 14 bundles of voter registers for the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) but Afolabi Fashanu (SAN), Oladipo Okpeseyi (SAN), and Kemi Pinheiro (INEC), the lawyers representing the All Progressives Congress, Tinubu and INEC respectively, objected to the admission of the registers.

 

He lamented difficulties in getting materials from INEC, including Form EC8As.

 

Uche moved to tender some bundles of certified true copies (CTCs) of election results, which he said were made available to his legal team after a second subpoena was issued on the chairman of the electoral body, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.

 

When the Presiding Justice of the court, Justice Haruna Tsammani noted that the documents were not properly arranged for easy reference, Uche blamed said INEC did not release the materials to them on time.

 

However, INEC’s lawyer, Pinheiro said the “petitioners have not paid for certification” adding that the documents were brought “from across the country”.

 

 

 

SaharaReporters