The Ogun state chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has faulted the alleged twisted and sponsored report by the People’s Democratic Party (PDP,) that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) failed to call its sole witness at the ongoing proceedings at the Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abeokuta in order to avert “national embarrassment.”
Ladi Adebutu of the PDP is challenging the re-election of Governor Dapo Abiodun.
However, In a manner akin to its earlier submission in July 2019 in the Atiku Abubakar’s petition challenging then re -election of Muhammadu Buhari, where the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), told the presidential election petition tribunal that inviting witnesses to defend its conduct of the February 23, 2019 general election would amount to becoming a partial umpire.
Yunus Usman, counsel to the commission at the time, urged the five-man panel headed by Mohammed Garba to close the commission’s defence.
“My Lords, will not be calling any witnesses to defend the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, against conduct of Feb. 23 election that re-elected Muhammadu Buhari as president.
“Our client will instead rely on the evidence it obtained from the petitioners’ witnesses under cross examination,” he said in 2019.
The Daily Crucible reports that Usman relied on the evidence of Atiku’s witnesses to arrive at its decision, especially one of them who gave evidence under cross examination that the election that produced Buhari as President in 2019 was ‘fair, free and credible.’
Similarly, in the on- going Ogun State governorship election petition Tribunal, PDP and Adebutu are challenging the re-election governor Abiodun.
INEC which is one of the respondents, closed its case without calling a witness.
The Commission’s Counsel, Olumide Ogidan, informed the tribunal that the first respondent would hing its case on that of the petitioners.
“On behalf of the first respondent, we have examined the petition as well as the evidence led so far.
“My Lords, on this note, we will not be calling any witness, but we will rather rest our case on that of the petitioners,” Ogidan said during his oral application to close INEC’s case
But the PDP claimed that the sudden change of mind by the electoral body was an apparent move to avert tragic embarrassment and the shame of defending alleged shoddy job it carried out in favour of Dapo Abiodun and the APC during the March 18 Gubernatorial election in Ogun state.
The Ogun PDP also accused the electoral umpire of being manifestly biased.
However, reacting to it, Ogun APC in a statement by the Publicity Secretary, Tunde Oladunjoye, lamented that it had to keep educating PDP and its failed candidate, Ladi Adebutu, without any of the two showing a sign of improvement.
APC noted that INEC didn’t bother to call a witness at all and elected to rest its case on the Petitioner’s evidence when it dawned on the commission that the PDP witnesses gave evidence that were unreliable, inconsistent, similar and repetitive.
The party said the electoral commission should be commended for not wasting precious judicial time and not misrepresented by anybody or party.
APC stated, “It is pitiable that one needs to be educating the People’s Democratic Party and its defeated candidate, Ladi Adebutu, every other time.
“It is true that INEC chose not to call its witness anymore. This should rather be a source of sadness to PDP and Adebutu instead of juvenile celebration. We thought they should be worried that INEC has found, and rightly so, the porous petition of PDP and Adebutu as not worthy of calling any witness for, since the petition holds no water.
“Has PDP forgotten that INEC’s lawyer has dutifully cross-examined PDP’s witnesses and thoroughly exposed them as liars and unreliable witnesses whose evidences were inconsistent, copied and dubbed repetitions?
“For example, PDP’s witnesses claimed to be non-partisan members of the public before they were exposed to be card-carrying members of PDP. Also, PDP’s witnesses’ statement were the same, word for word, in several instances even when the witnesses are from different polling units and different local government areas.
“If we may ask: Has PDP forgotten that its much-touted “expert statistician” told the Tribunal that the claim of over voting by the PDP was false? What witness will INEC need again when PDP’s witnesses and its so-called expert have put a lie to all claims by the loser’s party and rubbished the essence of its time-wasting petition?
“INEC should rather be commended for not joining PDP and fugitive Adebutu in further wasting the time of the Tribunal. The Tribunal is certainly not a Circus.
“And by the way, when will fugitive Ladi Adebutu return home to face the criminal charges of money laundering and vote-buying against him before the courts?”
