By Ikechukwu Nnochiri

ABUJA — PRESIDENT Goodluck Jonathan and his Deputy, Namadi Sambo, weekend, told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja, that they have short-listed 103 witnesses to appear in court and testify against the Congress for Political Change, CPC, and its presidential candidate, Gen. Muhammadu Buhari, following the party’s conduct in the recently concluded general elections.

The duo, through a brief argument they filed at the tribunal, pleaded that the court equally grants them leave to call experts in forensic analysis and in fingerprint, with a view to pinpointing the exact number of under-aged voters that were engaged by the CPC during the April 16 presidential elections across the country.

Ten Senior Advocates of Nigeria who endorsed the legal process before it was filed were Chief Wole Olanipekun, O.C.J. Okocha, Dr. Alex Izinyon, Damien Dodo, Damian Ajogwu, Ighodalo Imadegbelo, Chief Assam Assam, O.A. Omonuwa, Jude Nnodum and Paul Erokoro.

Experts to testify against Buhari

Some of the other experts the President said he would call against the CPC includes a biometric analyst and a statistician.

Meanwhile, both the respondents and PDP have filed a preliminary objection challenging the competence of the substantive suit that was instituted against them by the CPC.

In the notice of objection, they asked the court to dismiss the petition based on the premise that it was founded on a nullity having been filed on Sunday, May 8, 2011. They said that Sunday was a non-working day and that the registry of the court, under the applicable rules did not open on a Sunday for the transaction of any legal business.

Parties to the petition

They equally argued that the petition was not properly constituted given the fact that General Muhammadu Buhari and Pastor Tunde Bakare for whose benefit the petition was filed were not made parties to the petition.

They insisted: “The prayers/relief’s of the Petitioner cannot be granted in the absence of Buhari and Bakare,” adding that the petition was a gross abuse of the processes of the court and that it dealt with hypothetical and academic issues that could not be determined by the court.

President Jonathan and Sambo maintained that the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the action considering that some of the grounds relied upon by the petitioner were pre-election based issues which they said could not be determined by an election tribunal.

Consequently, they urged the Justice Isa Ayo Salami led five-man panel of justices, to go ahead and dismiss the petition, same being baseless, vague and an afterthought.

They specifically denied allegations that ballot papers were snatched in Bayelsa, Akwa Ibom and Cross River states by thugs loyal to the PDP as claimed by the CPC, noting: “In addition, respondents (Jonathan and Sambo) shall found and rely on expert opinions reduced into writing, based on bio-metric data and statistics to show that the election won by them was free and fair.”

Meanwhile, the CPC is specifically praying the tribunal to nullify the results that were garnered by the PDP in all the 17 states in the South, as well as those of Sokoto, Kaduna, Plateau, Kwara, Benue, Adamawa, Nasarawa states, in the North and the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

It also alleged that the ballot papers meant for certain polling units, were illegally diverted to other units and subsequently used for ballot stuffing, even as it has equally asked the tribunal to declare that President Jonathan failed to fulfil the requirement of section 134 (2) of the 1999  constitution.