•To commence hearing May 30
Alex Enumah in Abuja
The Presidential Election Petition Court (PREPEC), has ordered the consolidation of the petitions of the Labour Party, the Allied People’s Movement (APM) and the Peoples Democratic (Party), challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.
Presiding Justice of the five member panel hearing the various petitions against the declaration of All Progressives Congress (APC’s) candidate, Asiwaju Bola Tinubu as winner of the election, Justice Haruna Tsammani, yesterday, said the consolidation, which was aimed at the speedy hearing of the petitions, was predicated on the grounds that the issues raised by the parties were similar.
The court ruled in favour of consolidation despite the objections of Tinubu and the APC, who had at Monday’s proceedings argued that they would be greatly jeopardised and that the interest of justice would not be served if the petitions were consolidated.
“In line with paragraph 50 of the First Scheduled of the Electoral Act, 2022, justice demands that this petition be consolidated with CA/PEPC/04/2023 and CA /PEPC /05/2023 and be dealt with as one petition, since it relates to the same election and return,” Justice Tsammani held while delivering the panels pre-hearing report in the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi’s petition against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and the APC.
The panel stated that since there was no request for an extension of the pre-hearing session and none was granted, hearing in the consolidated petition has been fixed for May 30, with the petitioners granted three weeks to prove their petitions against the emergence of APC’s Tinubu as winner of the presidential poll.
According to Justice Tsammani, the petitioners, who would commence their case on Tuesday, May 30 were expected to end same on June 23, following which the respondents will open their defences of the election.
While the respondents in the case of LP will close their case on July 10, with final adoption by all parties fixed for August 5, in the case of APM and PDP, the respondents are to close June 6 and July 16 respectively and adopt on July 3 and August 8, 2023.
Similarly, while the court allotted 30 minutes for the star witnesses to give their evidence and another 20 minutes for cross examination, it allotted 10 minutes for evidence and three minutes for cross examination of other witnesses, adding that their would be no oral testimony of the witness, safe for the adoption of their statement and identification of documents.
Tsammani noted that the since there was no contemplation of out of court settlement, the panel was to go into full hearing of the petitions and also raise issues for determination following failures of parties to agree on what issues the court should look into.
Although five political parties had initially registered their grievances against the declaration of Tinubu as winner of the presidential election, however, the Action Alliance (AA) and the Action People’s Party (APP) had at the opening of pre-trial withdrew their petitions against Tinubu remaining the LP, APM and PDP.
The three remaining petitioners anchored their petitions on grounds such as irregularities, substantial non-compliance as well as corrupt practices etc, upon which they were asking the court to set aside the declaration of Tinubu as winner of the election.
They accused the electoral umpire of bias and influencing the outcome of the election in favour of APC and Tinubu, adding that INEC did not only manipulate the process to deny them victory but also failed to abide by its own regulations and guidelines for the conduct of the election especially in the use of the Bi-modal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) in the instant transmission of results from polling units to the INEC’s Viewing Portals.
