Andy Esiet, , Calabar
The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Calabar has ordered that all processes before the tribunal be filed on or before June 13.
The Head of the Tribunal, Justice Oken Inneh gave the order during the pre-hearing session of the tribunal which commenced and ended on Wednesday during the hearing of the cases.
Justice Inneh consented to the the position of the parties on the practice direction and urged counsels to comply with it accordingly and ordered that all processes must be filled by the 13th of June 2023 and parties should come back on June 19 for commencement of hearing proper.
Meanwthe the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress ((APC) have agreed to present 20 witnesses to prove their cases in the ongoing governorship elections petition tribunal in Calabar.
With the agreed position on the schedule to proceed by the parties, the petitioner and the 1st respondent will call 20 witnesses which comprises 17 regular and three subpoenaed witnesses .
The second and third respondents will call 12 witnesses comprising three regular and nine subpoenaed witnesses while the fourth respondent will call eight witnesses comprising seven regular and one subpoenaed witness.
In addition, the examination in Chief will not be more than 30 minutes for the witnesses and a reexamination, if any will only last for 10 minutes and each party has also agreed to state its case within six weeks.
Speaking at the end of the days proceedings, counsel to the PDP Dr. Joshua Musa, SAN, said ” today is supposed to be continuation of pre-hearing but tribunal observed that so many applications have been filed with written addresses in excess of the permissible limit.
“So they requested that all applications be reduced so we also respond with reduced reply within the given time frame”.
On his part, counsel to Governor Otu, Professor Mike Ozekhome, SAN, said “the tribunal has noted the practice direction for this kind of petition particularly in Paragraph 5 to the effect that no new interlocutory injunction or written address shall exceed ten pages and the reply five pages. All counsels must abide by this practice direction.
“Tribunal has ruled that everything needed to be done and processes needed to be filed must all be done before the next adjournment date”.
