{"id":67981,"date":"2019-07-29T15:28:54","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T14:28:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?p=67981"},"modified":"2019-07-29T15:28:54","modified_gmt":"2019-07-29T14:28:54","slug":"presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/","title":{"rendered":"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness"},"content":{"rendered":"<div dir=\"ltr\">The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that inviting witnesses to defend its conduct of the Feb.23 general election would amount to becoming a partial umpire.Mr. Yunus Usman, SAN, said this in his oral application urging the five-man panel headed by Justice Mohammed Garba to close the commission\u2019s defense.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMy 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 the conduct of Feb. 23 election that re-elected Muhammadu Buhari as President.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cOur client will instead rely on the evidence is obtained from the petitioners\u2019 witnesses under cross-examination.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere is no need calling witnesses to help the petitioners\u2019 case as doing so would have negated INEC\u2019s stance as impartial umpire,\u2019\u2019 Usman said.<\/p>\n<p>News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the electoral body was given six days to produce defense for the allegations made by the petitioners on the conduct of the presidential election.<\/p>\n<p>Following this development, the tribunal adjourned until July 30 for the second respondent (Buhari) to open his defense.<\/p>\n<p>NAN reports that INEC, Buhari and the All Progressive Congress had early tried to deflate all the issues canvassed by the petitioners at separate cross-examinations of the 65 witnesses that testified on their behalf.<\/p>\n<p>Specifically, the respondents on July 15 described the 48 Compact Discs evidence tendered by the petitioners as lacking in probative value and therefore challenged their admissibility.<\/p>\n<p>NAN also recalls that four of the video clips played in the court hall included \u201cCount down of Osun Decides\u2019\u2019, a production of Channels Television with Seun Akinboloye as host.<\/p>\n<p>In the above production dated Feb.8, Mr. Mike Igini, Resident Electoral Commissioner for Akwa Ibom had talked about the readiness of the electoral body to transmit the Feb.23 general election electronically.<\/p>\n<p>The second video was a clip of the postponement of the general election by INEC Chairman, Prof. Yakubu Mahmud.<\/p>\n<p>NAN further reports that the third video was a clip of AFEX Nigeria training of INEC Ad-hoc staff on electronic result transmission.<\/p>\n<p>Similarly, the briefing by the Nigerian Army authority on the status of Buhari\u2019s alleged certificate saga completed the four materials shown in court.<\/p>\n<p>INEC\u2019s counsel had said that all the video clips tendered by the petitioners related to the commission\u2019s activity before the election.<\/p>\n<p>Usman had alleged such videos had no nexus with the activities that happened during the conduct of the election.<\/p>\n<p>He also made the witnesses at various points to confirm that the chairman of the electoral body only expressed the hope of the commission to transmit results of the general election electronically, but that it was not actually done.<\/p>\n<p>He also said that no officials of the commission except the chairman\u2019s express permission had the statutory right to speak on behalf of the body.<\/p>\n<p>On his part, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, counsel for the president at various times of his cross-examination of the petitioners\u2019 witnesses clearly established from them that Buhari had his WAEC result.<\/p>\n<p>The respondents had on July 16 further attempted to dislocate the petitioner\u2019s video clip evidence on the allegation that INEC had concluded the decision to transmit the election\u2019s result electronically.<\/p>\n<p>To this end, Dr. Alex Izinyon, SAN, Counsel for the president, tendered a Channels Television video of INEC\u2019s chairman where he specifically said that the result from the Feb.23 general election would not be transmitted to the commission\u2019s central server.<\/p>\n<p>Chief Chris Uche, SAN, Counsel for the petitioners had on July 15 led a star witness, Mr. Segun Showunmi to tender the 48 Compact Discs evidence to substantial their claims.<\/p>\n<p>Counsel for the respondents had also claimed that the petitioners\u2019 33, 234 documentary evidence placed before the tribunal were \u201cmere papers\u2019\u2019 bearing no convincing contents.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on the_content --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on the_content -->","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that inviting witnesses to defend its conduct of the Feb.23 general election would amount to becoming&hellip;<!-- AddThis Advanced Settings generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Share Buttons generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><!-- AddThis Related Posts generic via filter on wp_trim_excerpt --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":65111,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-67981","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exclusive"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness - Pointblank News<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness - Pointblank News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that inviting witnesses to defend its conduct of the Feb.23 general election would amount to becoming&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Pointblank News\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2019-07-29T14:28:54+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"640\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"310\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Our Reporter\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Our Reporter\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Our Reporter\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c\"},\"headline\":\"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-07-29T14:28:54+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/\"},\"wordCount\":636,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg\",\"articleSection\":[\"Exclusive\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/\",\"name\":\"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness - Pointblank News\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg\",\"datePublished\":\"2019-07-29T14:28:54+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg\",\"width\":640,\"height\":310},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/\",\"name\":\"Pointblank News\",\"description\":\"Just the news\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c\",\"name\":\"Our Reporter\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/83b3820ef93d502ae3a617b2c881ca42?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/83b3820ef93d502ae3a617b2c881ca42?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"Our Reporter\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/author\/admin\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness - Pointblank News","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness - Pointblank News","og_description":"The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal that inviting witnesses to defend its conduct of the Feb.23 general election would amount to becoming&hellip;","og_url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/","og_site_name":"Pointblank News","article_published_time":"2019-07-29T14:28:54+00:00","og_image":[{"width":640,"height":310,"url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Our Reporter","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Our Reporter","Est. reading time":"3 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/"},"author":{"name":"Our Reporter","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c"},"headline":"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness","datePublished":"2019-07-29T14:28:54+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/"},"wordCount":636,"commentCount":0,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg","articleSection":["Exclusive"],"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"CommentAction","name":"Comment","target":["https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#respond"]}]},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/","url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/","name":"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness - Pointblank News","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg","datePublished":"2019-07-29T14:28:54+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/02\/Buhari-Abubakar-Atiku.jpg","width":640,"height":310},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/exclusive\/presidential-elections-tribunal-inec-has-no-witness\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS TRIBUNAL: INEC Has No Witness"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#website","url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/","name":"Pointblank News","description":"Just the news","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/ba61acbe7e8967bcf3f3ba603d9db23c","name":"Our Reporter","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/83b3820ef93d502ae3a617b2c881ca42?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/83b3820ef93d502ae3a617b2c881ca42?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"Our Reporter"},"url":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/author\/admin\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67981","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=67981"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/67981\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/65111"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=67981"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=67981"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pointblanknews.com\/pbn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=67981"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}