By WANDOO SOMBO (NAN)

With the pre-hearing stage over, legal fireworks kicked off at the Presidential Election Petition Court, (PEPC) on May 30.

The court held its inaugural session on May 8, the ritual that takes place to enable the bar and bench to agree on some ground rules before the actual hearing of petitions commences.

The PEPC has 180 days to hear and determine the petitions of Mr Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku and the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) and the petition of the Allied Peoples Movement, (APM).

According to Section 285 (5) to (7) of the 1999 Constitution as amended: “An election petition shall be filed within 21 days after the date of the declaration of result of the elections.

“An election tribunal shall deliver its judgment in writing within 180 days from the date of the filing of the petition.

“An appeal from a decision of an election tribunal or Court of Appeal in an election matter shall be heard and disposed of within 60 days from the date of the delivery of the tribunal or Court of Appeal”.

They are in court challenging the outcome of Feb. 25 Presidential Election which produced President Bola Tinubu and his vice Kashim Shettima.

Proceedings started at the court after the pre-hearing session with the Labour Party calling its first, out of 50 witnesses.

One of the witnesses, Mr Lawrence Nwakaeti, led in evidence by Mr Jubril Okutepa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, a counsel from the petitioners legal team tendered documents including a United States District Court judgment.

The judgment allegedly indicted President Bola Tinubu and ordered his forfeiture of 460,000 dollars in a drug-related offence.

Under cross examination by counsel to Tinubu, Mr Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the witness admitted that the judgment was not registered in Nigeria.

The witness told the court that he had read the judgment in its entirety and would be surprised if no mention was made of 460,000 dollars forfeiture in it.

While also cross examining the witness, counsel to the All Progressives Congress, (APC), Mr Lateef Fagbemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, sought to know if the document had the certification of any police officer in the United States.

“Do you have a certificate given under the hand of a police officer in the United States where the alleged conviction took place.

“Are you aware of a formal clearance report dated Feb. 4, 2003 issued under the legal attache’ of the United States embassy in respect of the alleged indictment and forfeiture”, he asked.

The witness told the court that he had no certificate from the police and that he was not aware of any such report.

The witness further told the court that he did not have the charges against Tinubu because there were no charges since the indictment was from a civil forfeiture proceeding.

Mr Kemi Pinhero, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission sought to present the witness as a trouble maker saying he was involved in some controversy over local elections in his state.

This however, attracted vehement objections from the petitioners counsel as he said the issue of the local election was not before the court.

For Obi and the Labour Party on day one, it was just one witness, 49 more to go.

If supporters of Obi and the LP had high expectations for hearing of the petition on day two of the proper hearing stage, they may have been a somehow disappointed.

At the resumed hearing of the petition on May 31, counsel to the petitioners, Prof. Awa Kalu, another Senior Advocate of Nigeria, told the court that he was constrained to ask for an adjournment due to unforeseen circumstances.

“My lords, our plan was to continue our case but we had an unexpected development at the secretariat.

“The unexpected development has to do with the illness of two of our key staff for which reason I am constrained to pray for an adjournment until tomorrow,” he said.

Justice Tsammani granted the request, especially as there was no objection from counsel to all the respondents.

Obi and the Labour Party had told the PEPC that they would need three weeks to prove their case and as at May 31, the petitioners had 19 days to go.

The court was again forced to step down hearing in their petition due to poor scheduling of documents they sought to tender in evidence.

There was some confusion as a lot of discrepancies were noticed as Mr Emeka Okpoko, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, attempted to tender documents from 23 Local Government Areas of Benue.

All efforts to reconcile the discrepancies proved abortive forcing the judges to rise for about 15 minutes to allow the petitioners rectify the confusion.

The judges didn’t seem pleased when they returned after the stand down and things still hadn’t been sorted out.

At this stage, Tsammani told the petitioners to take an adjournment and sort their documents out before returning to court.

“What we have done today is a waste of time. The poor way you have arranged the documents will cause confusion both for you and the court Justice Misitura Bolaji-Yusuf said in frustration.

Kalu, however, prayed the court to allow his team tender the documents they had rather than take an adjournment since they had already lost one day and this was granted.

The petitioners proceeded to tender certified true copies of electoral documents obtained from INEC in six out of the 18 states whose results they were challenging.

The documents were mainly Forms EC8A, which are election results from polling units.

The documents were admitted by the court though all the respondents objected to them being admitted in evidence.

Atiku and PDP on the other hand, appeared to have a better grip of things at the court.

This may not be unrelated to the fact that they are not strangers to the election petition court.

Atiku along with the party opened their case at the court on May 30 by first tendering documents to support their petition.

One of such documents tendered by counsel to the petitioners, Mr Eyitayo Jegede, SAN was Form EC8E which is the final declaration of winners result.

Jegede also tendered the Bimodal Voters Accreditation Systems Machines, (BVAS) report from all the 36 states including the Federal Capital Territory, (FCT).

He also tendered INEC certified documents in respect of number of registered voters as well as number of Permanent Voter Cards, (PVC)s collected in all the 36 states including the FCT.

Again, all the respondents objected to the admission of some of them in evidence.

The Chairman of the Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, however, admitted the documents in evidence.

The petitioners called their first witness, retired Captain Joe Agada, who was led in evidence by Jegede.

Agada told the court that he was forced to sign the result sheet of the presidential election.

He alleged that ballot papers and result sheets were manipulated by compromised electoral officers in collusion with agents of other political parties.

Under cross examination, the witness said that he had given evidence for Atiku in 2019.

PDP’s second witness, Mr Solarin Adekunle, who said he was the Ogun Collation Officer also told the court that he refused to sign the collated results in protest against electoral malpractices.

The petitioner’s third witness, Rep. Uzoma Abonta, told the court that the election should be nullified on the grounds that there were so many irregularities, discrepancies and noncompliance with rules of the Electoral Act.

Atiku and the PDP have called six witnesses out of 100 witnesses they said they have.

Allied Peoples Party, (APM) are not directly challenging the election of Tinubu and Shettima but challenging the issue of ‘’place holder’’.

To this effect, hearing of the party’s petition has been stalled due to a judgment of the Supreme Court on the issue of place holder.

At the resumed hearing of the petition on May 30, Olanipekun counsel to Tinubu told the court that the petition challenging his client’s declaration as president on grounds of place holder had been resolved by the Supreme Court.

Olanipekun said that a judgment of the apex court of May 26 delivered in a suit instituted by the PDP marked SC/CV/501/2023 against the APC on similar grounds had taken care of the issue of place holder.

Counsel to the APM, Mr Yakubu Maikasuwa, SAN told the court that they had been unable to get a copy of the judgment.

“I therefore apply for an adjournment as we are doing all we can to get the judgment so we can take a position on the status of the petition.”

All the respondents in the matter did not oppose the application for an adjournment.

Hearing of the petition has been adjourned until June 9 to enable the lawyers obtain the May 26 judgment of the Supreme Court.

Concerns have been raised by political analysts as well as the petitioners as to why INEC is rejecting its own documents.

Although Pinhero, INEC’s counsel hinted that it was because the documents were being smuggled into the petition, he refused to explain further when asked by newsmen.

The clock is ticking as supporters of all the petitioners as well as those of the respondents eagerly await the outcome of the PEPC. (NAN)

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