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Akinwande Soji-Ojo
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has raised an alarm over the non-release of the certified true copy of the judgment of the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) delivered on Wednesday.
The lead counsel to the former vice president, Chris Uche (SAN), had on Thursday given a 12pm Friday deadline for the court to release the document.However, the court failed to meet the deadline.
Atiku has now posited that the action of the PEPC is an attempt to undermine his quest for justice.
In a statement issued on Friday by his Special Assistant on Public Communications, Phrank Shaibu, Atiku said two days after delivering its judgment on the petitions he and his party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) filed challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election, the Court of Appeal has yet to provide their lawyers certified true copies of the judgment.
“By not making available to Atiku Abubakar, Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, the certified true copies of the judgement of Wednesday for its filings at the Supreme Court, the Presidential Election Petition Court, is undermining Atiku’s and Nigerians quest for justice,” the statement said.
While expressing the frustrations of Atiku and the PDP, Shaibu reminded the PEPC that “it had made heavy weather at the delivery of its judgement on Wednesday that parties need to adhere strictly to the time schedule set by the court.”
“The PEPC is not oblivious that three precious days of the 14-day limit for parties to file their processes at the highest court have been wasted by the Appeal Court.
“We wish to remind the PEPC that it struck out the testimonies of some of the witnesses of Atiku during the litigation at the court of first instance because their statements on oath were filed out of time.
“And now, for all intents and purposes, the same court wants to have Atiku and PDP’s appeal to the Supreme Court disqualified by the reason of time deadline.
“Does the PEPC not understand that the lawyers representing Atiku/PDP need to digest the judgement as contained in the CTC which represents the authentic pronouncements made in court on Wednesday in order to formulate its case for filing?” he queried.
Shaibu said there can be no justification for the PEPC not making available the CTC of its judgement for Atiku to continue with his quest on behalf of over 200 million Nigerians for substantial justice as opposed to the judgement rendered by the PEPC.
“It is curious that the same PEPC that claimed that the judgement was ready at the time it was delivered on Wednesday is still grappling with typos and errors, according to available information. Why did the PEPC not wait till next week to deliver the judgement as it would still have met the legal deadline instead of rushing to render a judgement in which the text is still undergoing panel beating?
“It is anti-democratic of the court to steal, already at the last count, 3 precious days out of the 14-day time limit for Atiku to file his processes at the Supreme Court. The lost time would never be recovered,” he added.