Presidential tribunal: Obi, Atiku, Tinubu, Shettima, INEC to call 237 witnesses

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar, and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, will call about 150 witnesses to prove their cases against the conduct and outcome of the February 25 presidential election.

The President-elect and candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu; his deputy, Kashim Shettima; the APC and the Independent National Electoral Commission have proposed 39, 21, 25 and two witnesses, respectively.

The number of witnesses was made known on Saturday during the resumed pre-hearing of the petition at the Presidential Election Petition Court.

Atiku and Obi are challenging the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the election by INEC.

During Saturday’s proceedings, the parties made their proposals regarding the number of witnesses to be admitted, their examination and re-examination, among others.

Atiku, through his lead counsel, informed the court that about 100 witnesses would be called to prove the case against the respondents.

He further said that because the issues were getting narrower, his team intended to take only three weeks against the statutory seven weeks.

Counsel for Obi and the LP, Prof Awa Kalu, SAN, said his client would call 50 witnesses.

“We still have a few hiccups at the Independent National Electoral Commission because of the order of this court made on March 8, directing the commission to allow us to carry out forensic investigation of the BVAs, which we have not been able to do.”

To this end, Kalu said that his clients would require seven weeks within which to present their petitions in court.

He told the court that with regard to timing, his team was suggesting that 30 minutes be allotted to the witnesses classified as “star witnesses” to demonstrate any electronic evidence.

He, however, said the 30 minutes should exclude the time that would be used to demonstrate video evidence or any other electronic evidence.

Kalu stated, “For this class of witnesses, they will be cross-examined for 30 minutes by each respondent and re-examination will be for five minutes.

“In respect of other witnesses, we suggest 10 minutes for evidence-in-chief, 10 minutes for cross-examination by each respondent and five minutes for re-examination.