From Noah Ebije, Kaduna
The lead petitioner for the March 18 governorship election of Kaduna State, Mohammed Isah Ashiru of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has told the election petition tribunal that he shall bring before the tribunal 25 witnesses to testify against the declared winner of the election, Uba Sani, All Progressive Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Following the declaration of Uba Sani by INEC as the winner of the governorship election, Ashiru and his party, PDP had petitioned the tribunal to seek redress in order to reclaim his victory.
At the pre-hearing of the petition before the tribunal on Tuesday, the lead Counsel to Ashiru and PDP, Samuel Atung, SAN, told the 3-man panel led by Justice Victor OOviawe that the petitioner may field a star witness for the rest of the witnesses when the hearing proper commenced.
However, counsels to the 1st respondent; Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Alhassan AUmar, SAN, said they will call five witnesses.
2nd respondent; Gov. Uba Sani, Led by Sanusi Musa (SAN) said they have 18 witnesses, but, “we will subpoena 15”.
The 3rd respondent; APC, led by Mohammed Sani Katu,SAN, said they will present three witnesses, but, “we will subpoena another three, making it six witnesses”.
The chairman of the panel, Justice Victor Oviawe, after extensive deliberations alloted seven minutes to examination in-chief, 12 minutes to cross-examination, while three minutes were alloted to re-examination of the witnesses respectively.
The counsels in the matter adopted all documents filed, just as the court directed the PDP counsel to respond within four days upon service of application by the respondents’ counsels, while two days were alloted to respondents’ counsels to also respond.
The court adjourned the case to June 15, 2023 for continuous pre-hearing of the matter.
On Thursday, June 1st, 2023, the 3-man panel headed by Justice Victor O Oviawe with Justice K Damlat and Justice Nonye as members began sitting on the petition challenging the declaration of Uba Sani as the winner of the last governorship polls in the State.
Speaking with newsmen shortly after the court session, Uba Sani’s counsel, Sanusi Musa, SAN, said: “Today is the first day of the hearing, it is a pre-hearing stage and it is at this stage that it is expected that the tribunal will have an understanding of our cases including how many witnesses we want to call and whether we have motions that we will want the petitions to be dismissed or struck out and also adopt those issues.
“We have told the tribunal that we have filed two motions on behalf of our client to dismiss or strike out the petition seeking the tribunal to set aside the victory of our client because it is incompetent and filed outside the 21 days required by law. After we filed our petition to the defendants, they filed a reply to our petition which is also against the law.
“We have informed the court that we have filed another application seeking the dismissal of their petition at the preliminary stages and the tribunal adjourned to 15th June, 2023 for the continuation of the pre-trial.”
Also speaking to newsmen in an interview after the Court session, Isah Ashiru’s lead Counsel, Samuel Atung (SAN) said, “The pre-trial session is normally a cleaning house, each house has stated the number of witnesses it intends to call and time was allotted for the witness in terms of their evidence in chief, examinations and re-examination, issues of documents to be rendered was also deliberate upon and the tribunal gave a direction that the trial will take. But the bottom line is election tribunals have a time frame and the petition should be decided within the time frame provided by the law.
“The tribunal will decide if our petitions were filed outside the 21 days time frame. They have filed their application and we have been given four days to respond to it, so I do not want to comment on the merit since the issue is subjudice. Our prayer is that at the end of the sitting, justice will be served.”