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Presidential Tribunal Resumes As APM Enlists One Witness

The party's star witness will take 20 minutes for examination, 25 minutes for cross-examination, and five minutes for re-examination.


FILE PHOTO: Scene at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, venue of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (Photo: Channels TV/Sodiq Adelakun)

 

The Presidential Election Petitions Court resumed on Monday with the streamlining of witnesses by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) amid the challenge of President-elect Bola Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 election.

The party said it would be calling one witness and requested three days to testify.

The star witness will take 20 minutes for examination, 25 minutes for cross-examination, and five minutes for re-examination.

Other witnesses will get 10 minutes each, while 15 minutes is slated for cross-examination and five minutes for re-examination.

Counsel for the party said documents that would be relied on by each party has been exchanged between the parties.

For his part, counsel for INEC, said the electoral body was not invited for the meeting between petitioner and the respondents.

He added that INEC has only one witness and would need just a day to prove its case.

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APC agreed substantially with the report of the petitioner and said it would need five days to call one witness.

Akin Olujimi, counsel for Tinubu and Vice-President-elect Kashim Shettima, said he would be calling three witnesses with two to be subpoenaed, but added that he would need four days to put in his defence.

On the terms of cross-examination of the star witness, Olujimi said he would need 25 minutes.

Counsel for one of the respondents, Kabiru Masari, promised to call one witness and use one day for his defence.

APM also informed the court that it is not opposing the proposed consolidation of the three surviving petitions.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), for its part, said it was at the discretion of the court to decide how it went.

The electoral body insisted it was taking a neutral stance on the subject of consolidation of the three petitions.