The Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Peter Obi, has refuted media report quoting him as asking the Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja to grant him 7 Weeks to assemble witnesses who will give evidence against the election of the President -elect, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu, of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Peter Obi and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar of the People’s Democratic Party,PDP, are challenging the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as winner of the February 25 presidential election in Nigeria.
In a statement on Sunday by Diran Onifadr, Head, Obi-Datti Media, Obi described as misleading, a report in a national daily on Saturday captioned “Give me seven weeks to produce witnesses, Obi tells Tribunal.”
The former governor of Anambra State said the report was a misrepresentation of what his Counsel presented before the Election Petition Tribunal.
“Peter Obi did not ask the court to give him seven weeks to bring in his witnesses. He only implied he will be through with all 50 of them in seven weeks.
“In proposing his schedule of witnesses, Eme Awa Kalu, SAN leading the team in court, had told the court that Peter Obi and Labour Party would be presenting 50 witnesses and that these 50 witnesses, will require 7 weeks to present their evidence before the Tribunal.
“At no time did the Counsel say that he required ‘Seven weeks to produce witnesses’ as misreported by the Punch. The correct interpretation of what our lawyers told the court unambiguously is that the presentation of our witnesses, from start to finish, will take seven weeks. We are not asking the court to wait for seven weeks before we bring in the first witness as the Punch story tries to imply.
“It is expected that every media house will assign competent reporters to cover this important case,” he stated.
