LABOUR Party and Peter Obi, its presidential candidate, have called one witness out of the 50 proposed witnesses in their case against President Bola Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The lawyer for Peter Obi, Jibrin Okutepa, presented a ruling from a district court in the United States that supposedly accused Tinubu and ordered his forfeiture of $460,000 for drug-related offenses before the witness, a lawyer from Anambra, took the stand.
The Presidential Election Petitions Court reconvened after a week, today marking the beginning of the definitive hearing in the petitions filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP), along with their respective parties, contesting Tinubu’s election victory on February 25.
The hearing began, led in evidence by Okutepa, with an Anambra-based lawyer and LP witness, Lawrence Nwakaeti, tendering the certified true copy of the US district court judgement.
Following cross-examination, Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, stated that the witness had acknowledged the judgment had not been recorded in Nigeria.
The lawyer acknowledged that there was no document from a Nigerian or American consular confirming the judgment, but noted that the judgment stands on its own.
He asserted that he had read the entire judgment in America and stated that he would be surprised if the $460,000 forfeiture was left out.
The witness during cross-examination by the lawyer for APC, Lateef Fagbemi, stated that no American police officer’s signature appeared on the certificate for the American court judgment.
He denied knowledge of a February 4, 2003 formal clearance report by a legal attaché from the American embassy in respect of the alleged indictment and forfeiture.
Later, it was admitted into evidence by the court.
Eyitayo Jegede, the attorney for Atiku Abubakar and the PDP, submitted all evidences, including copies of the declaration of results, summary of results, printouts of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) reports for each polling place in the 36 states, and the total number of PVCs collected across all states, including the FCT, which were certified as true by INEC.
In order to give the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM) time to review the certified true copy of the Supreme Court decision from May 26 on the controversy surrounding the “double nomination” of Vice President Kashim Shettima, the court also postponed hearing on their petition until June 2.
Obi of the LP, together with his running mate Datti Baba-Ahmed and the former Minister of State for Labor Festus Keyamo, were in attendance in court to observe the day’s activities.
Keyamo joined the President’s legal team after senior lawyers were observed earlier talking in groups in the fully packed courtroom in preparation for the sitting.
