Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and his party will, on Thursday, close their case in the joint petition challenging declaration of Bola Tinubu as winner of the February 25 presidential election.
The petitioners, according to a pre-hearing report, were supposed to close their case on Tuesday. But their lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche, notified the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that they lost two out of the days allotted to them, and asked that the days be considered.
The petitioners, who told the court during pre-hearing session that they would call 100 witnesses, presented only 25.
Speaking with newsmen, Uche said they might call additional five witnesses, thus, rounding off the figure to 30.
The counsel said some of the documents to be tendered in the remaining two days would make up for the remaining 70 witnesses.
“We are closing our case on Thursday. It was supposed to end today (Tuesday) but because we lost two days, one of which was the June 12 public holiday, the court graciously extended our time by two days,” Uche said after proceedings.
Earlier in the proceedings, the petitioners lamented difficulties encountered in getting Certified True Copies (CTC) of documents from Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to bolster their petition.
At the resumed hearing of the petition, counsel for Atiku and his party told the court that getting materials from INEC was like getting weapons from an opponent. He, however, commended the legal team of the electoral body, headed by Abubakar Mahmoud, for assistance in getting some of the documents from INEC.
Uche applied for a stand-down in proceedings to enable the petitioners mark the deluge of documents made available to them, yesterday.
Meanwhile, counsel for INEC, Kemi Pinheiro, told the court in his submissions that INEC officials brought the documents from all over the country and that, the petitioners were yet to pay for certification of the documents.
He said it was incumbent on the petitioners to prepare a schedule of documents they wish to tender.
The court rose for about 10 minutes to enable parties in the petition to put heads together and find what to do with the documents. When the parties came back, Uche reported to the court that they had agreed that the petitioners go back with the documents, prepare a schedule of documents, and mark them for tendering tomorrow.
The five-member panel of judges, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, adjourned to today for continuation of hearing.