The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, will on Thursday, June 22, close their case at the Presidential Election Petition Court in their joint petition challenging the outcome of the Feb. 25 presidential election.
The petitioners, according to a pre-hearing report, were supposed to close their case on Tuesday, June 20.
However, at the resumed hearing of the petition, the petitioner’s lead counsel, Chris Uche, SAN, told the court that his clients lost two days out of the days allotted to them and prayed the court to allow them two more days.
The court agreed with Uche because one of the days lost was the Democracy Day public holiday on June 12.
Earlier, Uche told the court that in spite of the spirit of cooperation that the court had appealed for, it was still difficult to get Certified True Copies (CTC) of documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
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He stressed that getting documents from INEC “is like asking your opponents for weapons”.
He said they had asked INEC for Form EC8A series for all 36 states and the FCT but had gotten only 14 batches so far.
The lawyer stated that the documents were brought to them in court by INEC, adding that although they were certified by the commission, they had not been sorted out in a proper manner.
“These are forms EC8A series from the 35 states and we will start with Abia, and after tendering it, all parties will come together to ensure that they are sorted out properly,” Uche added.
This, however, did not go down well with the court and other counsel.
Kemi Pinhero, SAN, told the court that the documents even though certified, had not been paid for, adding that it was the responsibility of the petitioners to sort out documents they subpoenaed.
The chairman of the court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, decided to stand down the matter for about 10 minutes to allow counsel decide on how to proceed.
When the ten minutes elapsed, Uche prayed the court for an adjournment to allow his team prepare a schedule on how to tender the documents to the court on Wednesday.
The court later adjourned the hearing of the petition until Wednesday, June 21.
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