The three different petitions attempting to invalidate the results of the 2023 presidential election were consolidated on Tuesday by the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, in spite of objections from the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, and the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
The court said in its pre-hearing report that because all of the petitions related to the same election, it was permitted to do so by Article 50 of the First Schedule to the Election Act of 2022.
The five-member panel, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, declared that it was certain that grouping and deciding the three petitions together would help it swiftly resolve all of the legal concerns arising from the February 25 presidential election.
As a result, it set a deadline of May 30 for all petitioners to present their cases,
The court, however, ruled that it would only give Obi three weeks to substantiate his appeal. Obi, who finished third in the poll, had initially requested seven weeks to summon 50 witnesses and provide evidence to show that the presidential election was rigged against him.
The court additionally granted the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the President-elect and the Vice President-elect, Senator Kashim Shettima, five days each to offer their defence after noting that 88 witnesses were scheduled to testify in Obi’s case.
Parallel to that, it gave Kabiru Masari, the fourth respondent in the case, three days to likewise present his defence. The court stated that such witnesses would be cross-examined within 20 minutes while emphasising that all the star witnesses that would be provided by the petitioners would only be allowed to utilise a maximum of 30 minutes to adopt their written depositions and tender documents where necessary.
According to the statement, it would hire a timekeeper to guarantee strict adherence to the time allocated to each witness. It further stated that other classes of witnesses would deliver their evidence-in-chief within 10 minutes and be re-examined for five minutes.
The Justice Tsammani-led panel set July 10 as the deadline for the conclusion of the evidence in the consolidated petitions and set August 5 as the deadline for all parties to adopt their final briefs of argument so that it could set a date for judgement. It also instructed the court registry to send hearing notices to all petitioners.
In addition, the court stated that it had seen from the proceedings before it that the parties had lined up a total of 166 witnesses in the case before the appeal by PDP candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was combined with the others.
The panel approved Atiku’s request to submit 100 witnesses within three weeks, using the same timeline it used for the witnesses in Obi’s case. In contrast, it gave the INEC two days, Tinubu five days, and the APC five days each to defend the results of the presidential election.
The court decided that the petitioners would present their case from May 30 to June 20, and INEC, the first respondent, would enter its defence from June 21 to June 28. This was in accordance with the set schedule for the full-blown hearing. The court gave the APC from July 7 to July 16 to wrap up its own defence, while giving the President-elect from June 29 to July 6 to defend his election.
The court also gave the Allied Peoples Movement, APM, the third party in the consolidated case, one day to call the one witness it intended to present. While giving Tinubu and Masari two days and one day, respectively, to present their defences, INEC was given one day to enter its defence. In order to prove that Tinubu and the APC did not win the presidential election, APM informed the court that it would primarily depend on documentary evidence.
The court has announced that Saturdays will also be used for the presidential election dispute’s court hearings.
Recall that although five petitions were initially submitted to contest the declaration of Tinubu as the election’s winner, the Action Alliance (AA), dropped its claim on May 8 instead.
Atiku, the PDP candidate and former vice president, stated on Tuesday that he was not concerned that Tinubu would be sworn in as president on May 29 before the petition to annul his election victory had been resolved. Atiku, who finished second in the poll, expressed optimism that he would successfully defend his right to office in court.
Shortly after the court merged all the cases, Atiku asserted that the court had the authority to remove Tinubu from office even after the swearing-in ceremony in a statement made through his principal attorney, Chief Chris Uche, SAN.
The PDP candidate, through his lawyer, said: “I have been asked about May 29, I want to assure people that swearing-in is only a ceremony that does not in any way tie the hands of the court. He acknowledged that the hearing of the petition would begin about 24 hours after Tinubu had been sworn in as president.
“The taking of an oath binds the person who takes the oath, not the court. The court has given its timeline for parties to present their case, and we are happy that with this development, the petitions will be expeditiously determined.’’
In a related development, President-elect Tinubu has forbidden members of his legal team from speaking to reporters during the hearing of the consolidated case that challenges the validity of his election victory.
Chief Niyi Akintola, SAN, the lead attorney who represented the APC at Tuesday’s resumed proceedings, made the disclosure in open court after the panel hinted that it might, going forward, forbid both attorneys and members of the public from entering the courtroom with their mobile phones and other electronic devices.
The decision, according to Justice Tsammani, was made to increase security in the courtroom and safeguard the integrity of the proceedings.
Security personnel assigned to the court attempted to take lawyers’ mobile before the court started its sessions, but lawyers resisted and managed to enter the courtroom.
The security guards brought the lawyers’ and newsmen’s attention to a written warning posted at key areas inside the courthouse that forbade anybody from entering the court with phones or other gadgets while the doors to the courtroom were locked.
The operatives eventually bulged and let everyone into the courtroom with their phones, following a minor uproar that started at the entryway.
The panel’s chair, Justice Tsammani, addressed the matter as soon as the meeting began and defended the order by stating that the court was aware that some persons were covertly filming its sessions.
“What we are doing is for the good and safety of everyone and also based on advice from the security agencies. We all know that with technology now, a little chip can set this place on fire,” he stated, adding that lawyers, as ministers in the temple of justice, ought to cooperate with the court at all times.