APA – Lagos (Nigeria)
The presidential candidate of the Labour Party in the Nigeria’s presidential polls, Mr. Peter Obi, has appealed against the judgment of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal which upheld the election of Bola Tinubu as the winner of the presidential polls.
According to local media reports on Wednesday, the 51-ground appeal was filed by Peter Obi and the Labour Party at the Supreme Court in Abuja on Tuesday.
The reports added that the 51 grounds of appeal included:
That the tribunal was wrong when it struck out the witness statements on oath of ten (10) out of the thirteen (13) witnesses called by the Petitioners on the ground that the statements were filed after the expiration of the period of twenty-one (21) days prescribed by the 1999 Constitution (as amended) for them to file the statements.
They complain that the decisions of the Supreme Court and the Court of Appeal which the Tribunal cited in support of the decision do not apply to the facts of this case.
It noted that that the Court of Appeal, in coming to the above decision, refused to follow its previous decisions in many cases, which were cited and submitted to it, that a subpoenaed witness need not file his statement alongside the petition and any such statement filed after the time allowed for filing the Petition is competent and valid. (See Grounds 10, 11, 12, 13, and 14 of the Notice of Appeal).
The Tribunal was also wrong when it struck out the witness statements on oath of the Petitioners’ witnesses (i.e. PW4, PW7, and PW8 who were Expert Witnesses) on the ground that they were persons interested in the outcome of the Petition. They failed to consider and appreciate the decisions of the Supreme Court to the effect that a person interested means “a person who has a pecuniary or other material interest in the result of the proceedings – a person whose interest is affected by the result of the proceedings, and therefore, would have a temptation to pervert the truth to serve his personal or private ends”. The PEPC failed to take into account that in this case, there is no evidence on record in the instant case that any of the Petitioners’ witnesses had any pecuniary or material interest in the result of the proceedings.
It will be recalled that the Nigerian electoral body declared Bola Tinubu as the winner of the presidential polls, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party was declared third in the polls.
Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who came second in the polls had on Tuesday in Abuja appealed against the judgment of the Tribunal at the Supreme Court in Abuja.
GIK/APA
Peter Obi of Labour Party appeals against judgment of Tribunal at Supreme Court
