100 witnesses to testify for Atiku, PDP in petition against Tinubu’s election

 

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has exhibited intent to call “no more than 100 witnesses” in the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT). Also, the Labour Party candidate Peter Obi is challenging the declaration of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), in the February 25 election.

Counsel for Atiku and the PDP, Chris Uche, addressing the court in Abuja on Saturday, said all the parties had met, and considered and agreed on the numbers of witnesses, duration and examination of witnesses. Uche added that though the new time given them to call the witnesses is seven weeks, they would need three weeks, since the issues were getting narrower.

All the parties in the suit agreed to streamline the numbers of witnesses as well as the duration of each party to call witnesses.

For the evidence in chief, they categorised them into 30 minutes for the lead witness because they will tender and identify documents.

They also proposed 15 minutes for each respondent for cross-examination and five minutes for re-examination of the lead witness of the petitioners. In addition, 10 minutes was proposed for other witnesses of the petitioners, as well as 10 minutes for cross-examination of these witnesses, by the respondents.