Peter Obi never requested for seven weeks to to produce witnesses at tribunal

By Ikechukwu Okaforadi

Labour Party (LP) has said the presidential candidate of the party, Peter Obi never requested for seven weeks to enable him present his witnesses contrary to some media reports on Sunday.

In a statement issued yesterday by the Head, Obi-Datti Media, Diran Onifade, which is titled ‘Misquotation of Peter Obi/LP Legal Counsel by Punch Newspapers’, the party said the report was a misrepresentation of what the Labour Party Counsel presented at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.

The statement said “Our attention has been drawn to a misleading report in the Punch Newspaper of 20th May 2023, captioned “Give me seven weeks to produce witnesses, Obi tells Tribunal” which is a misrepresentation of what our Counsel presented yesterday, before the Election Petition Tribunal.

“Peter Obi did not ask the court to give him seven weeks to bring in his witnesses. He only implied he will be through with all 50 of them in seven weeks.

“In proposing his schedule of witnesses, Eme Awa Kalu, SAN leading the team in court, had told the court that Peter Obi and Labour Party would be presenting 50 witnesses and that these 50 witnesses, will require 7 weeks to present their evidence before the Tribunal.”

It said at no time did the

Counsel say that he required ‘Seven weeks to produce witnesses’ as misreported in the media, pointing out that the correct interpretation of what LP lawyers told the court unambiguously is that the presentation of its witnesses, from start to finish, will take seven weeks.

“We are not asking the court to wait for seven weeks before we bring in the first witness as the story tries to imply”, the statement by the party said.