President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Thursday, opposed the bid by the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar 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 February 25 2023 presidential election.
In his bid to establish the allegation of irregularities in the conduct of presidential election, Atiku Abubakar had subpoenaed three ad-hoc workers of INEC to give first hand account of their experiences as they relate to the February 25 presidential election.
He had specifically requested them to offer explanations on how the results of the presidential election were transmitted and carried out.
Meanwhile, Tinubu, represented by Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) objected to the tendering of statements on oath made by the witnesses before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja.
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, 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 the counsel to the APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) 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 and argued that the objections by Tinubu, APC and INEC were deliberate ploy designed to delay the hearing of the petition.
Uche insisted that the statements of the subpoenaed witnesses could not have been front loaded along with the petition because they have 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 Tsammani on resumption, announced that ruling in the objections had been reserved and ordered that the evidence of the three subpoenaed witnesses be taken and the respondents to cross examine them.
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