By Yemi Yusuf
The Presidential Election Petition Court has given Peter Obi, the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party, LP, and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, three weeks to prove their case against the victory of Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, in the 2023 presidential election.
In order to ensure speedy hearing, the court also consolidated all the petitions filed by the three petitioners, the PDP, LP, and the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM).
APM was given one day to prove its case as it had only one witness to call.
The Chairman of the Tribunal, Justice Haruna Tsamani, made this ruling while presenting the court pre-hearing report on Tuesday.
The court also fixed May 30 for the commencement of trial in the three petitions during which the petitioners will be expected to call their first sets of witnesses.
In order to speed the process along, the court said there would be no oral examination of witnesses in line with Section 41(3) of the 1st Schedule of the Electoral Act, as witnesses will only be allowed to adopt their written statements.
Specific time was allotted for each category of witnesses with the star and expert witnesses allotted 30 minutes for evidence in chief, while 20 minutes is given for cross-examination, and five minutes for re-examination.
Peter Obi’s hearing is to commence on May 30 and end June 23. Hearing in the case of Atiku who was also given about three weeks to prove his case, will commence on May 30 and end on June 20.
APM’s hearing will begin on May 30 to end July 3 and is expected to close its evidence on June 6.
The First Respondent (INEC) was given two days, while the 2nd and 3rd respondents (Tinubu and APC) have five days.
Hearing for the consolidated suit is to commence on May 30 across the board while Labour Party and the PDP would close theirs on June 23.
All three parties are challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election, in which the APC candidate, Bola Tinubu, was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
Tinubu polled 8,794,726 votes, while PDP’s Atiku Abubakar scored Abubakar 6,984,520 votes and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, finished third with a tally of 6,101,533.
The Tribunal is also expected to sit all week, including Saturdays.
