Mr Peter Obi and his Labour Party (LP) have concluded their petition before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu. The petition, marked CA/PEPC/03/2023, was filed by Obi and LP to contest the election that brought Tinubu to power on May 29. The respondents in the petition include the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress (APC). The petitioners were given 21 days to present their case against the respondents before the court.
During the proceedings, the petitioners initially stated their intention to call 50 witnesses to support their case. However, as they reached the end of their presentation on Friday, they had only called 13 witnesses. One of their witnesses, Yunusa Tanko, a member of LP Situation Room, testified before the court and submitted relevant documents.
When cross-examined by INEC, Tanko claimed that the results provided to them were illegible and had been tampered with. In response to questioning by Tinubu's counsel, Tanko stated that his party had over 130,000 agents during the election, which took place across 176,974 polling units nationwide. He also expressed his challenge to the overall election results, emphasizing that after four months, the results were still being downloaded from the IreV system.
The respondents, on their part, presented judgments from the Federal High Court (FHC/ABJ/1454/2022) and the Supreme Court (SC/CV/501/2023) as evidence through Tanko. The petitioners objected to the admissibility of these documents, reserving their reasons for their final written addresses. However, the court admitted and marked the documents as exhibits.
Following the testimony of another witness, Peter Yari, an ad-hoc staff of INEC, the petitioners, represented by their counsel Uzoukwu, announced the closure of their case. The respondents requested a brief adjournment to celebrate the Sallah festival with their families, with the intention to resume proceedings on July 3 to present their case.
The five-member panel, presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani, adjourned the session until July 3 for the respondents to commence their defense.
Source: NAN
