President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, APC, on Thursday, vehemently kicked against the bid by the former Vice President, Abubakar Atiku to engage ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to give evidence in his petition challenging the declaration of Tinubu as winner of the 2023 presidential election.
Atiku in the bid to establish the alleged irregularities against the election had subpoenaed three ad-hoc workers of INEC to give first hand account of their experiences during the presidential election of February 25.
He had specifically requested them to offer explanations on how the results of the presidential election results were transmitted.
However, Tinubu, represented by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, objected to the use of statements made on oath by the witnesses to be tendered at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in aid of Atiku’s petition.
The grouse of the President and the APC was that the statements of the ad-hoc workers were not front loaded at the time of filing the petition.
Olanipekun, SAN, who cited several provisions of the law against the use of the witnesses argued that since they were subpoenaed by Atiku as the petitioner, he ought to have front loaded their statements on oath along with the petition.
He asked the Court to reject the witnesses and discontenance their statements on grounds of violating the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.
Tinubu’s arguments against the subpoenaed witnesses were adopted by Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who stood for the APC and Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, who appeared for INEC.
Credit: dailypost.ng
