Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Hope Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate in the February 23 election, Chief Ambrose Oworu, said they would be calling two witnesses to prove their petition against President Muhammadu Buhari at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
Counsel to the petitioners, Chukwu Njoku, who disclosed this yesterday during the pre-hearing session, further sought the permission of the tribunal to effect some corrections in the witness statements on oath already filed before it.
Njoku, who adopted the petitioners pre-hearing information sheet filed on May 5, 2019, explained that the present motion was different from the one previously ruled upon by the tribunal.
He further told the five-member presidential panel headed by Justice Mohammed Garba that subject to the convenience of the court they would be needing two days to establish their petition against the election of Buhari.
Meanwhile, counsel to President Buhari, Chief Alex Izinyon, a Senior Advocate Nigeria (SAN), while also adopting his client’s pre-hearing information sheet filed on May 7, asked the tribunal for seven days to call two witnesses and unspecified number of subpoenaed witnesses.
However, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), through its lead counsel, Yunus Usman, SAN, asked for two days to call its only witness, just as counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Chief Akin Olujimi, told the tribunal that seven days would be sufficient for them to call just two alongside some other subpoenaed witnesses against the HDP’s petition.
After taking submissions from counsel, the tribunal had fixed July 10 for hearing in a motion filed by the petitioners seeking to amend the statement of oath of the original witnesses to be called in support of the petition.
The decision was at the behest of counsel to Buhari, INEC and APC, who requested for time to respond to the motion, which they all said was served on them in court this morning.
Subsequently, Justice Garba ordered the respondents to file their responses within three days and the petitioners to reply on point of law within two days if they so desire.
Garba, will on the same day, July 10, deliver the tribunal’s ruling in INEC’s motion seeking the dismissal of the HDP’s petition for allegedly being incompetent and abuse of court process.
Owuru and the HDP in their petition dated March 7 and marked: PEPT/001/2019 are seeking the nullification of President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory at the poll on grounds of alleged irregularities and violation of the 1999 Constitution as well as the Electoral Act.
They told the tribunal that the February 23 presidential election which produced Buhari for a second term in office was unlawful, illegal, unconstitutional and unknown to law and as such should be invalidated by the tribunal.
In one of their motions, they argued that the postponement of the election from February 16 to 23 had no backing of any law as no cogent and verifiable reason required by law were advanced for the postponement.
While maintaining that the February 23 poll was never validly held by INEC and cannot produce any valid result or returns recognizable by law, they cited several authorities to buttress their averment.
It is also their contention that since INEC breached the provisions of the Electoral Act, especially section 26 to conduct the February 23 poll, the purported election cannot stand in the eyes of the law.