The Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) and its Presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, will Thursday, June 22, close their case in their joint petition challenging the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
According to the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) pre-hearing report, the Petitioners were supposed to close their case on Tuesday, 21 June.
However, when the matter was called up, the lead counsel to Atiku, Chief Chris Uche (SAN) informed Justice Haruna Tsamani led the panel that they lost two days out of the days allotted to them.
The petitioners, who said that they would call 100 witnesses, but have called only 25 witnesses so far, prayed the court the two days be returned back to them.
Speaking shortly after proceeding, petitioners said, they might call additional five witnesses to have a round figure of having called 30 witnesses.
Uche said that some of the documents to be tendered in the remaining two days would take the place of the remaining 70 witnesses.
“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.”
Earlier in the proceedings, the petitioners lamented the difficulties encountered in getting Certified True Copies (CTC) of documents out of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in aid of their joint petition challenging Tinubu’s election.
At the resumed hearing of the petition, Counsel to Atiku and his party told the court that, getting materials from INEC is like getting weapons from opponents.
He told the Court that getting documents from INEC is very difficult, but however commended the legal team of the electoral body, headed by Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) for their assistance in getting some of the documents from INEC.
Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned till Wednesday, June 21 for the continuation of the hearing in the petition.
