Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), plans to bring 100 witnesses in his petition against Bola Tinubu, the declared ‘President-elect,’ to the Election Tribunal. The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is also proposing to call 22 witnesses, while Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) intend to bring forward 39 and 25 witnesses, respectively, to defend their petitions.

The modalities for the main hearing of Atiku’s petition reveal that more time will be allocated for the examination of star witnesses and expert witnesses, ranging from 20 to 30 minutes, some of whom will be subpoenaed to present their testimonies under oath. Chris Uche (SAN), the lead counsel to Atiku, stated that despite the law allowing seven weeks to present witnesses, they expect to conclude their presentation within three weeks due to the narrow constitutional issues involved.

The Presidential Election Petitions Court adjourned until Monday, May 22, to report on the consolidation of modalities for the hearing of the petitions from the three remaining political parties.

In a separate development, the Labour Party announced its intention to call 50 witnesses to testify against Bola Tinubu’s victory, and they estimate that it will take them seven weeks to do so. Awa Kalu, the party’s counsel, explained that the delay is due to the pending forensic investigation of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), an electronic device used by INEC for voter verification during elections.

The duration of witness examinations was also discussed. It was agreed that star witnesses would have 30 minutes to present any electronic evidence. Cross-examination for this category of witnesses would be limited to 20 minutes, followed by a 5-minute re-examination, with an additional 10 minutes allotted for other witnesses. For respondents, 20 minutes was allocated for star witnesses and 30 minutes for cross-examination.

While INEC proposed seven days to present its five witnesses in the Labour Party’s petition, there was a disagreement regarding the need for a separate time slot for the demonstration of electronic evidence.

Roland Otaru, counsel to Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima (Vice President-elect), proposed nine days to call their witnesses, excluding expert witnesses. The APC aligned with this submission, intending to present seven witnesses over a nine-day period.