Presidential Election Petition Tribunal: Absence Of Witness Stalls Opening Of INEC’s Case

On Monday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) could not present a witness to support the petition Mr. Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP) filed to challenge the election of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as president.

The electoral body, the first respondent in the lawsuit, was given until Monday by the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) at the Court of Appeal in Abuja to present its defense of the February 25 presidential election that it organized.

When the petition was summoned, INEC’s lead counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), told the court that the first defendant had three days to defend the outcome of the presidential election on February 25, 2023.

He informed the court that INEC has three witnesses to present in its case and expressed regret that the witness scheduled to testify on Monday was not present. He asked for an adjournment until Tuesday for INEC to open its case in the joint petition Obi and his party filed against Tinubu’s election.

The petitioners and President Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the APC, listed as second to fourth respondents in the petition, did not object to the delay motion.

As a result, the court’s five-member panel of Justices, chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani, deferred further proceedings in the case until Tuesday, July 4, 2023.

After the testimony of their 13th witness and the tendering of several documents to prove their allegations that the presidential election was conducted in gross violation of the Constitution, Electoral Act, and INEC’s guidelines for the conduct of the disputed election, Obi and his party closed their case in their petition challenging the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election on Friday, June 28.