The Presidential Election Tribunal, yesterday, opened hearing in the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, challenging President Muhammadu Buhari’s victory with 883 exhibits from Niger State admitted so far.
This is coming as the 88-year old erudite Professor of Law and Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Ben Nwabueze, yesterday, took over as head of the legal team representing the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
He took over from Dr Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, on a day the five-member tribunal headed by Justice Mohammed Garba, okayed for the commencement of full-blown hearing on the petition challenging President Buhari’s re-election.
Nwabueze, who was granted permission to address the tribunal on a wheelchair, said his presence was to underscore the importance of the case to the constitutional development of the nation.
“I have chosen to appear on this auspicious day of commencement of hearing on this epoch day.
“I had to travel to attend, notwithstanding my age and attendant health challenges. This is to underscore the importance of this case to the constitutional development of this country, a matter that I have been passionate about all these years”.
Thereafter, Nwabueze prayed to be excused by the tribunal, but not after he dropped with the Registry, a copy of the speech he said he would have delivered at the inaugural sitting of the tribunal that held on May 15.
“I wish your lordships more grace and Nigeria well,” he added.
Shortly after he handed over a copy of his speech to the Registry, Nwabueze left the tribunal, even as Uzoukwu took over and announced that the petitioners would commence with presenting witnesses and evidence with respect to the conduct of the presidential election in Niger State.
Meanwhile, before the petitioners could kick-start the hearing process, all the respondents – the Independent National Electoral Commission, President Muhammadu Buhari, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), opposed the continuation of the proceeding.
Counsel to Buhari, Chief Mike Igbokwe, SAN, decried that despite the order of the tribunal that all documents that would be tendered from the Bar, should be filed and exchanged by parties, the petitioners only served him two schedules of documents to be tendered with respect to Jigawa and Niger states, before the proceeding commenced.
“I urge this court to suspend the trial until they comply with an order of the court made yesterday by consent of parties that schedule of documents to be tendered must be filed and exchanged between parties”, Igbokwe added.
Similarly, counsel to INEC, Yunus Usman, SAN, and that of APC, Yakubu Mekyau, SAN, accused the petitioners of attempting to ambush them.
All the respondents said they were not ready to go on with the hearing.
Nevertheless, Uzoukwu urged the court to ignore the objections he said was deliberately aimed to frustrate the hearing.
“Seriously, our time of presenting our petition is being compromised by the respondents, bearing in mind that this petition has a timeline that is fast approaching”, he added.
The petitioners’ counsel noted that all the documents to be tendered were originally listed in the petition, saying there was, therefore, nothing the respondents could be surprised about.
Uzoukwu expressed surprise over the observation made by the respondents’ lawyers.
He said his team “should be commended and not condemned”, as he could not have served the schedule earlier than Thursday morning, because the registry of the court only completed the processing earlier on Thursday.
He said the schedule to be used for Niger and Jigawa states was already with the respondents.
But ruling, the five-man bench led by Justice Mohammed Garba, dismissed the respondents’ request, saying that the agreements reached between the parties at the pre-hearing session concluded earlier on Wednesday, had stipulated that trial would commence on Thursday.
Justice Garba, who delivered the ruling of the tribunal, added that the agreement reached which was adopted at the tribunal’s directive on Wednesday did also not make the service of the schedule of documents a condition-precedent for the commencement of trial.
He added that the respondents could also not validly claimed to have been ambushed by the alleged late filing of the schedule since the documents listed in it had been referenced in the petition filed and served on the respondents months ago.
The tribunal has admitted the Form EC8C for Agaie Local Government Area of Niger State tendered by the petitioners as Exhibit P1.
The petitioners’ lead counsel later tendered Forms EC8A and EC8B (series of polling unit and ward results) in respect of the said local government area.
It would be recalled PDP and Atiku had in their joint petition, maintained that data they independently secured from INEC’s back-end server, revealed that they defeated Muhammadu Buhari at the poll with over 1.6million votes.
They alleged that INEC had at various stages of the presidential election, unlawfully allocated votes to Buhari, saying they would adduce oral and documentary evidence to show that result of the election as announced by the electoral body, did not represent the lawful valid votes cast.
They alleged that in some states, INEC deducted lawful votes that accrued to PDP and Atiku, in its bid to ensure that Buhari was returned back to the office.
The petitioners said they would call evidence of statisticians, forensic examiners and finger-print experts at the hearing of the petition to establish that the scores credited to Buhari were not the product of actual votes validly cast at the polling units.
The petitioners said they intended to call 400 witnesses, “or as many as possible within the prescribed time,” to prove their case.
However, all the respondents had since filed processes to challenge the competence of the petition, which they said, should be dismissed.
The tribunal had given the petitioners 10 days to present their case, while the respondents would take six days each to enter their defence.