Tribunal adjourns as Tinubu, APC, INEC call one witness each despite hefty PDP, Labour petitions

The presidential election petitions tribunal has adjourned sessions as President Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress(APC), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) closed their defence in Peter Obi and Labour Party’s petition.

Counsel for Messrs Tinubu and Shettima, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, said they were closing their case after the testimony of their sole witness.

Senator Opeyemi Bamidele, a long-time associate of Mr Tinubu’s, was the president’s only witness in the matter. He was cross-examined by the Labour Party’s counsel on Wednesday.

Mr Bamidele, during his testimony, stated in his witness statement that Mr Tinubu’s votes were miscounted in Kano State, with a shortage of 10,929 votes while transferring from INEC form EC8D to forms EC8D(A), the documents for which election results are collated at different levels.

The witness also relied on the international observers’ report on the February 25 presidential election signed by Earnest Koroma, a former president of Sierra Leone. He also testified that he was aware that Mr Tinubu’s forfeiture of $460,000 came in a case of drug dealing and money laundering.

Lateef Fagbemi, a senior lawyer for the ruling APC, also informed the court that they had no witnesses. He, however, used the testimony of Mr Bamidele to buttress the argument of the APC that the tribunal should uphold the election.

Lawrence Bayode, a technical director at INEC, testified on Tuesday that the electronic transmission of results failed on election day when the cloud server relied on by INEC suffered a glitch. He, however, dismiss claims of results tampering by the opposition parties and said the failure was not sufficient to warrant overturning the election.

After today’s proceeding, the Abuja Division of the Court of Appeal panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani gave 10 days to the legal teams of Mr Tinubu, APC and INEC and seven days to Mr Obi and Atiku Abubakar’s Peoples Democratic Party to file their written addresses. Both parties will then have five days to stipulate their respective responses.

The court also said a date would be announced later for the adoption of final arguments from the parties, as the tribunal has only 180 days to conclude the entire case in line with the electoral law.

The reason behind Mr Tinubu, APC and INEC’s decision to call only one witness each was unclear to court attendees on Wednesday. The PDP and Labour have both filed voluminous petitions with stark allegations of electoral irregularities, fraud and disqualifying criminal charges against Mr Tinubu, who was declared winner of the February election and sworn into office on May 29.