By Ayo Yusuf
As the Presidential Election Petition Court resumes sitting Monday after a one week break, the Labour Party, LP, has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, of a lack of seriousness in prosecuting its case before the tribunal.
At the resumed sitting in Abuja, INEC was expected to open its defence against the accusations of the Labour Party that it connived with the All Progressives Congress, APC, to rig the February 25th elections.
Both parties as respondents were going to begin their defense today and three
witnesses were slated to testify on INEC’s behalf but its counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, said it needed another 24 hours to be ready to kickstart its case because its first witness was not available in court.
Mr Mahmoud, who said the witness had called in to complain about a domestic emergency, pleaded with the court to adjoin the case till tomorrow July 4th.
None of the counsels concerned, from Labour Party’s Levi Uzoukwu, and APC’s Lateef Fagbemi, to Bola Tinubu’s Wole Olanipekun objected to the plea and the court adjourned sitting for Tuesday 2pm when the defense would begin its case proper.
Speaking after the adjournment, Mr Uzoukwu opined that INEC was simply not ready to defend its case at the tribunal. He said there were too many inconsistencies in the manner that the commission has chosen to prosecute its case that one is led to believe that it was unnecessarily delaying proceedings.
He told newsmen who interviewed him outside the court premises that the Labour Party has such a strong case that it was eager to move on with its case unlike the INEC with “its contradictions and inconsistencies.”
“I stand to be proven wrong, but I would wish that they defend this matter so that the public will see more things of what happened to this election, ” he said.
He argued that Nigeria had never had an election as bad as the one that took place on February 25th and he and his client are ready for INEC whenever it gets serious with its case.
