8th Day of Hearing at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal 2023

• The court sat at about 2:47pm and the Petition of Peter Obi and Labour Party with Petition Number CA/PEPC/03/2023 was immediately called.

• Amongst many others, notable people who were in court included Peter Obi, Akin Osuntokun, Dele Farotimi, Nana Kazaure and Julius Abure.

• Peter Obi represented the petitioners (himself and LP).

• All other parties were not represented in court.

• Dr. Livy Uzoukwu SAN led the petitioners (Peter Obi and Labour Party) legal team.

• Abubakar Mahmoud SAN led the 1st respondent (INEC) legal team.

• Chief Akin Olujimi SAN led the 2nd and 3rd respondents (Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima) legal team.

• Lateef Fagbemi SAN led the 4th respondent (All Progressives Congress) legal team.

• Patrick Ikwueto SAN and Prof. Paul Ananaba SAN conducted the proceedings on behalf of the petitioners.

• The petitioners opened their case with the calling of a witness. They called only one witness, one Witness ITX whose witness statement on oath is contained in Pg. 85-88 of the entire petitioners petition which was filed before the tribunal.

• After the witness took the oath of truth, the petitioners conducted their examination-in-chief (the first examination of a witness by the person who calls the witness) and this was followed by cross-examination by all the respondents of the case. The petitioners however, chose not to re-examine the witness and the witness was asked to leave the witness dock.

• During the examination, the witness told the court that he did not vote but is a software engineer who investigated and made findings about the issues bothering on the failure of the 1st respondent (INEC) to transmit directly from the polling units. This his investigation, he said, was founded upon the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and other supplementary laws, INEC Interviews at Chatham House and several publications made by INEC.

• After the witness examination exercise, the petitioners moved two motions before the court which was an application for the interrogatories directed at the 1st respondent. All the respondents also adopted their responses to the motion and asked the court to deny the motion of the petitioners.

• Prof. Paul, for the petitioners, proceeded to tendering documents of INEC certified Forms EC40G (This is an incident report form which shows data of polling unit cancellations and other incidents).

• Due to time constraints, the petitioners were only able to tender certified true copies of Forms EC40G for eight (8) local government areas of Bayelsa State.

• This application to tender these documents were objected to by all the respondents, however, the court admitted all of them and marked them as exhibits accordingly.

• At this point, the petitioners sought for the adjournment of the hearing. There was no objection by all the respondents to the application for adjournment.

• In furtherance to this, the court adjourned till Friday June 9, 2023 at 3pm for continuation of hearing.

• The matter came to an end at about 5:36pm and the court wished everyone safe journeys back.

8th Day of Hearing (Thursday 8th June, 2023)

Credit

UC Maxwell

Weyimi Lube

Kelechi

Ifueko

1 Million March Crew

Vawulence Space

Jimmy

Agboga Olayemi

Kolade Kayode

Lyfatubely

Jobidient

Jennifer