The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), on Wednesday, struck out the testimonies of 10 out the 13 witnesses called by Mr Peter Obi and the Labour Party.
Delivering judgement, Justice Haruna Tsammani, the chairman of the five-member panel, held that the petitioner’s request for an extension of time to subpoena 10 additional witnesses, was not originally part of the petition.
The court held that this was a new issue introduced into the petition and the respondents could not respond to it again.
The court held that it was an attempt to amend the petition beyond the legally allowed 21 days.
The court dismissed all the testimonies from these witnesses and struck out all documents tendered by them from the court records.
The court held that their witness statements were filed in violation of Section 4 (5) (b) of the constitution and were therefore incompetent.
It further held that though the Petitioners alleged that the election was marred by irregularities, they, however, failed to give specific details of where the alleged infractions occurred , that is the particular polling units it took place.
The court held that the witnesses brought by the petitioners 13 in number had 10 as subpoenaed witnesses, the expert reports and analysis were rejected.
It further held that the petitioners failed to include the statements on oath of the subpoenaed witnesses in their petition as stipulated by section 83(3) of the Evidence Act to enable the respondents have a fair hearing.
The court also held that the three out of the 10 witnesses are interested persons and not Independent persons, their documents tendered were not admissible.
” For the IreV, the blurred copies, there are public documents and therefore 83(3) is not applicable because there are public documents duly certified by the independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC).
The court held that the allegations of non-compliance, electoral malpractices over voting were shown by the petitioners by giving the details of the polling units were such occured.
” The polling units where irregularities alleged by the petitioners were not shown including the 18, 088 blurred results documents tendered by the petitioners.
On the merit of the petition, the court held that the petitioners allegation of non compliance did not affect the results of the election.
On the criminal record of the 2nd respondent, the court held that the respondents provided evidence which gave a clean slate on that.
” The non compliance to the Electoral Act alleged by the petitioners, which they hinged their arguments on inability of INEC to transmit results electronically.
” INEC can not be mandated to transmit that results electronically, this the judgments of Federal high court and this court have taken care of. ” Under the law, INEC being independent can not be compelled to transmit election results electronically” the court held.
The court held further that INEC told the court that there was technical glitch during the election which the petitioners claimed it was a means to manipulate the election results.
On the issue of invalid reasons of corrupt practices due to the inability of INEC to upload the results and manipulation, the court held that the petitioners failed to establish evidence to the claims.
”In order to prove these claims, the petitioners should provide two sets of results, the the genuine one and the false one”, the court held.
