President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) rejected the appearance of the witnesses summoned by the PDP. The petitioners called the first witness but there was no cross-examination as the respondents were not prepared due to the short notice.
The respondents, through their counsel, objected to the testimony of a witness who claimed to have been an ad hoc staff of INEC during the February 25 presidential election. The petitioners’ lawyer, Chris Uche, SAN, said they had summoned three witnesses and called the first witness.
INEC’s lawyer declined to call the witness, saying he did not have enough time to verify the testimony. He said the witness could not be taken as an ad hoc employee without checking INEC’s records. Tinubu’s lawyers, Akin Olujimi and Lateef Fagbemi, took time to review the statement. Uche’s attempts to dispense with the subpoena of testimonies failed as the defendants insisted on reviewing them. Uche urged the court to call at least one witness as the testimony had no unusual content. Uche, at the insistence of the respondents, applied for an adjournment for Thursday to allow three subpoenaed witnesses to testify.
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The applicants presented Witness 11, Mr Ndubisi Nwobu, and PDP Collation Agent for Anambra. He said he signed Form EC8D under duress to obtain a copy from INEC. NAN reports that Form EC8D is the state result sheet. During cross-examination by Mr Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, the witness stated that although the election in his polling unit was peaceful, INEC officials refused to upload the results to IREV. “The election in my unit went smoothly but we could not upload the results on IREV despite all attempts.”
“According to witnesses, there were no problems at the polling stations, only at the district level there were irregularities. I visited 30 out of 4,720 units in Anambra.” During cross-examination by Lateef Fagbemi of the APC, SAN, the witness expressed dissatisfaction with the election because the results were not uploaded on IREV in real time as promised by the INEC chairman. When questioned by President Bola Tinubu’s lawyer, Akin Olujimi, SAN, the witness stated that the Labour Party won the election in Anambra. The petitioner sought to call INEC witnesses but the respondents refused. The court adjourned to allow the respondents to study the witness statements. Respondents in the petition CA /PEPC/05/2023: INEC, President Tinubu, and APC.
