Presidential poll: Atiku, PDP to close case on Friday at tribunal

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, have indicated that they would close their case at the tribunal on Friday.

According to the pre-hearing report, the petitioners ought to close their case on Tuesday.

However, at the session on Tuesday, Chris Uche, petitioners’ counsel told the court that his team lost two days out of the days allotted to them. One of the lost days was a public holiday to mark Democracy Day.

He prayed the court for an extension of time by two days which the court agreed.

Earlier, Uche applied to tender documents, which he said were handed to them in court by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) pursuant to two subpoenas served on the chairman of the commission.

He tendered 14 bundles of voter’s registers for the federal capital territory (FCT) but was objected to by the respondents.

The senior advocate also moved to tender some bundles of certified true copies (CTCs) of election results (form EC8A) before the court.

However, Haruna Tsammani, chairman of the five-member tribunal, noted that the documents were not properly arranged and marked for easy reference. 

Uche blamed INEC for the improper arrangement, claiming that the commission failed to release the materials on time and was also reluctant to release other documents requested by the petitioners.

“Getting materials from INEC is like getting weapons from opponents,” he said.

Responding, Kemi Pinheiro, INEC counsel, faulted Uche’s claim, insisting that neither the electoral commission nor its officials have any reason to withhold election materials from petitioners.

Pinheiro accused the petitioners of not paying the required fees for the certification of the documents they planned to tender.

“The petitioners have not paid for certification. We brought these documents from across the country,” he said.

After a brief stand down, parties later agreed to return on Wednesday with a well-arranged schedule of documents.

As the hearing progresses, the petitioners have called 25 out of 100 witnesses they had indicated to call.

Speaking with journalists after the court session, Uche said the petitioners could still call five more witnesses to raise the total number to 30.