Lawyers at the election tribunal in Abuja
With the pre-hearing stage over, legal fireworks kicked off at the Presidential Election Petition Court, (PEPC) on May 30.
The court held its inaugural session on May 8, the ritual that takes place to enable the bar and bench to agree on some ground rules before the actual hearing of petitions commences.
The PEPC has 180 days to hear and determine the petitions of Mr Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP), Alhaji Abubakar Atiku and the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) and the petition of the Allied Peoples Movement, (APM).
According to Section 285 (5) to (7) of the 1999 Constitution as amended: “An election petition shall be filed within 21 days after the date of the declaration of result of the elections.
“An election tribunal shall deliver its judgment in writing within 180 days from the date of the filing of the petition.
“An appeal from a decision of an election tribunal or Court of Appeal in an election matter shall be heard and disposed of within 60 days from the date of the delivery of the tribunal or Court of Appeal’’.
They are in court challenging the outcome of Feb. 25 Presidential Election which produced President Bola Tinubu and his vice Kashim Shettima.
Proceedings started at the court after the pre-hearing session with the Labour Party calling its first, out of 50 witnesses.
One of the witnesses, Mr Lawrence Nwakaeti, led in evidence by Mr Jubril Okutepa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, a counsel from the petitioners legal team tendered documents including a United States District Court judgment.
The judgment allegedly indicted President Bola Tinubu and ordered his forfeiture of 460,000 dollars in a drug-related offence.
Under cross examination by counsel to Tinubu, Mr Wole Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, the witness admitted that the judgment was not registered in Nigeria.
The witness told the court that he had read the judgment in its entirety and would be surprised if no mention was made of 460,000 dollars forfeiture in it.
While also cross examining the witness, counsel to the All Progressives Congress, (APC), Mr Lateef Fagbemi, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, sought to know if the document had the certification of any police officer in the United States.
“Do you have a certificate given under the hand of a police officer in the United States where the alleged conviction took place.
“Are you aware of a formal clearance report dated Feb. 4, 2003 issued under the legal attache’ of the United States embassy in respect of the alleged indictment and forfeiture’’, he asked.
The witness told the court that he had no certificate from the police and that he was not aware of any such report.
The witness further told the court that he did not have the charges against Tinubu because there were no charges since the indictment was from a civil forfeiture proceeding.
Mr Kemi Pinhero, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission sought to present the witness as a trouble maker saying he was involved in some controversy over local elections in his state.
This however, attracted vehement objections from the petitioners counsel as he said the issue of the local election was not before the court.
For Obi and the Labour Party on day one, it was just one witness, 49 more to go.
If supporters of Obi and the LP had high expectations for hearing of the petition on day two of the proper hearing stage, they may have been a somehow disappointed.
At the resumed hearing of the petition on May 31, counsel to the petitioners, Prof. Awa Kalu, another Senior Advocate of Nigeria, told the court that he was constrained to ask for an adjournment due to unforeseen circumstances.
“My lords, our plan was to continue our case but we had an unexpected development at the secretariat.
“The unexpected development has to do with the illness of two of our key staff for which reason I am constrained to pray for an adjournment until tomorrow,’’ he said.
Justice Tsammani granted the request, especially as there was no objection from counsel to all the respondents.
Obi and the Labour Party had told the PEPC that they would need three weeks to prove their case and as at May 31, the petitioners had 19 days to go.
The court was again forced to step down hearing in their petition due to poor scheduling of documents they
