Welcome back to the continuation of the hearing….
Follow the part 1… #PEPTLiveUpdates : Labour Party storms court with More witness (video)
SAN Ikpeazu: Where do you work Witness: I am a Mathematician at Nnamdi Azikiwe University
LP: Do you recognise your statement Witness: Yes I do, with my signature and what I wrote.
LP: So do you adopt this document with you as your statement Immediately Tinubu’s lawyer stands up and cuts in
Olanipekun: My lord we object. We object to this adoption of the witness statement. I was waiting for Mahmoud to rise but we’ll, we object to this adoption.
‘Wow, SAN Objection’ INEC’s lawyer is now up
SAN Mahmoud: My lord we also object to the adoption of this witness and would state our reasons at the stage of address.
Wahala APC: My lord we also object to this adoption of the witness. ‘Some lawyers are paid to be shouting objection objection objection ’.
SAN Ikpeazu is now up with a huge smile on his face.
SAN Ikpeazu is now reading the Electoral Act that states a witness is mandated to present statements and also cross examination process.
LP: Do you adopt your evidence in chief Witness: Before the adoption I want to make a clarification on page 5
Justice Tsammani: No you cannot make corrections, you have adopted
SAN Ikpeazu: My lord, the witness is allowed to point out the few areas that he wishes to correct just like we have done previously before he adopts.
Justice Tsammani: Okay
LP: So proceed witness Witness: In bracket, C table 3 that shows Rivers State document should be replaced with c table 2 and 3 of Benue state documents
Justice Adah: What of the E or F which one is supposed to be there Witness: E has sub documents and that entire segment is for Benue
Justice Tsammani: That’s an alteration SAN Ikpeazu: No my lord, it’s an amendment, it’s a typographical error
Justice Tsammani: The only way I can accept this is if he withdraws the statement while you can and correct what you need corrected I cannot use pen to alter my document
SAN Ikpeazu: My lord, we have done this before, he has not adopted the statement yet. He can make corrections when needed. It’s just one line of table 2 and 3. That’s all. It can be corrected.
We have made corrections before with statements in this courtroom. INEC’s lawyer is now on his feet Hmmm problem.
SAN AB Mahmoud INEC: The only way we can accept is if he withdraws the statement. He should withdraw and make all his corrections and come back another time.
SAN Ikpeazu is about to stand INEC: Learned colleague please I’m still on my feet. This correction is too substantive and we won’t allow it.
SAN Ikpeazu is now up SAN Ikpeazu: Corrections to statements have been done here before, just before adoption of statement I don’t see the issue now.
INEC Mahmoud: My lord, we leave it to your discretion but I have made my stance known.
Tinubu lawyer: My lord, we leave it to your discretion.
APC: My lord we leave it to your discretion. ‘It’s obvious now that they are doing all these to waste the time of Labour Party’s lawyers, the shorter time Labour Party lawyers have, the better it is for the respondents, so they are willing to waste that time’ One INEC baby lawyer sitting beside me has just stood up to show AB Mahmoud something in his laptop as related to this witness. It’s my fault na, I allowed him charge the laptop with the socket beside me. He will come back and meet me here.
SAN Ikpeazu is now up with a huge smile LP: We allowed Olanipekun make corrections before, so there should be no problem.
Justice Tsammani: Let him make the corrections and let’s proceed
SAN Ikpeazu: Thank you my lord, you can see the whole page there is written Benue, so that statement beneath that shows Rivers is typographical, so just change it as Benue.
Justice Tsammani: Go ahead SAN
Ikpeazu: So witness do you now adopt your witness statement
Witness: Yes I do ‘Congratulations oh.
SAN Ikpeazu: On paragraph 4 on page 3 paragraph B(b) you mentioned 18,088 blurred Polling Unit result. You did.
Witness: Yes I did.
Justice Tsammani: Where is it SAN Ikpeazu: Paragraph 9 i, ii and iii my lord. We would now tender all these documents. We have gone extra miles of making copies for our learned friends on the other side so that we don’t need to apply again to make copies. The clerks are now taking the copies from Labour Party and Peter Obi’s lawyers to distribute to all respondents. Ladies and gentlemen , have you seen an encyclopaedic dictionary Put 10 of it on top each other.
That is how the document for this witness is What kind of wickedness is this. The judges are all laughing.
INEC lawyers are looking with surprise and shock. Labour Party what is this At this point the whole court is laughing.
When do you expect them to finish reading this document.
SAN Ikpeazu: My lord, we are kind enough to make them copies, so they won’t stress themselves.
SAN Ikpeazu is not nice, What is this.
Justice Tsammani: I can see how nice you are. You are very nice with this loads of documents The whole courtroom is laughing.
INEC: My lord, we object to this loads of documents
Tinubu’s lawyers: My lord, when I saw these buckets this morning, I thought Ikpeazu’s daughter is doing wedding and he’s sharing asoebi for the wedding We object to all these documents. It cannot even contain their buckets
SAN Ikpeazu: It’s your colleague that’s doing wedding na APC lawyer SAN Fagbemi stood up with a no smiling face and ended all the jokes immediately: We object to this and we would give our reasons in full at the final address.
‘What is this ’ I wish I can take a picture of the documents so that you all can see it.
When would the respondents be done going through it Is that how much INEC stole the election. This evidence from the witness.
The judges are currently looking through the documents to understand. I doubt they can understand it today oh So the whole courtroom is just calm while the judges are looking through.
Justice Ugo: This is what Igbo men would see and shout “Odiegwu”!.
SAN Ikpeazu: My lord, that’s why we explained all the appendix in the report so that we can avoid any form of Odiegwu
Justice Tsammani: We would sort out this later, we will rise for 5 minutes and come back.
READ ALSO : PDP bigwigs already abandoning Atiku Abubakar for Tinubu.
Immediately the judges stood up, the clerks and the secretary signalled to the Labour Party lawyers and SAN Ikpeazu to come and assist them with the explanation the justices need on just one of the encyclopaedic evidence So right now, they are all flipping pages and trying to understand one of the document. Peter Obi and Julius Abure are sitting pretty beside me waiting for you all to go through their encyclopaedic evidence.