The Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate in the 2023 election, Peter Obi, on Monday, June 19, said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) refused to provide the documents they asked for.
Obi and the LP are petitioners in the petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023 challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu.
The respondents are INEC, Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The LP and Obi told the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja that due to INEC’s refusal to provide them the documents they asked for, they can’t go on with their case.
The counsel for the LP, Jubrin Okutepa, told the court that all the documents his client asked for from INEC were not provided.
Okutepa said: “We are bringing this to your notice for your intervention because we have done everything humanly possible.
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“This afternoon, INEC released few IreV reports from Lagos and Gombe.
“These documents were certified since May 29. We have severally written letters detailing the documents we needed in proof of our petition.
“We have paid for most of these documents.”
He further informed the court that it appeared INEC was deliberately delaying proceedings.
The counsel for INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, told the court that he received a letter dated May 15 from the petitioners, saying he has not received any other letter after that.
He said: “All the documents that the subpoenaed witnesses are tendering were provided by INEC. We never denied the petitioners any document.
“I am a senior counsel and know the importance of this matter. They should stop this lamentation.”
Wole Olanipakun, SAN, counsel for Tinubu and Shettima promised to ensure that a meeting between senior lawyers holds to address the issues raised.
The court urged them to come to a better understanding so that the proceeding can go on smoothly as they pledged in their spirit of cooperation.
The petitioners through their counsel, Patrick Ikweato, SAN, brought their seventh to testify.
The subpoenaed witness, Loretta Ogah, is an architect with Amazon Web Services (AWS).
At the point of adopting her witness statement on oath, the respondents objected.
Mahmoud told the court that the petitioners just served them with the documents, saying: “I will not be in the position to examine the witness today, I need to study the documents.”
Olanipakun also objected to the adoption of the witness statement.
“We are not saying that the witness should not go on with her evidence,” he said.
The petitioners tendered the witness’s employment letter by Amazon and her resumé which were admitted in evidence.
Also admitted were six reports showing the health status of the AWS dashboard of cloud services in 33 regions and certificates of compliance.
The five-member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, therefore, adjourned until Tuesday for the cross-examination of the witness and further hearing of the petition.
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