Governorship Tribunal Advice Parties to Simplify the Number of their Witnesses.
The Plateau state Governorship Election Tribunal in Jos, admonishes all parties to be realistic on the number of witnesses they intend to call and proved their cases.
This statement was issued by the Tribunal during the continuation of pre- Hearing in Jos.
Counsel to the Petitioners,Professor Kayode Olatoke inform the court of their agreements in respect of witnesses and time allotted to all parties.
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For we the Petitioners, we considered four weeks instead of six weeks allotted to us by the law.
For the first respondents, conceded to 6 days instead of 10.
While the second and third respondents insisted in taking their ten days.
The learned silk further stated that the second agreement was on the issue of examination of witnesses and time allotted for re-Examination
And we agreed that, examination in chief should be maximum of 5 minutes,while examination of star witnesses take 15 minutes.
Cross Examination for regular witness,while we are suggesting 10 minutes, the respondents suggested 20 Minutes.
The learned Senior Counsel further explained the time frame for the cross Examination of the star witnesses 25 minutes but the respondents suggested 45 minutes and the Re-Examination,we all agreed that regular witnesses will take 3 minutes then the experts or star witness will be allocated minutes .
The parties equally agreed that all True Certificate Copies of public documents listed by the parties is to be tendered from the bar before the commencement of the trial by the Petitioners and contentious documents are to be tendered through the witnesses.
All objections to the admissibility of documents is to be indicated during trial while arguements are to be reserved to the end of trial, which will be contain in separate addresses.
Counsels to the First Respondent Dr. A. A Adewale made his submission on the issues they agreed and the ones they did not agree.
Also making his submission,Counsel to the 2nd respondents P.A Akubo advanced their reasons for seeking more time to cross examining witnesses and we want to do justice then the time should be enough and the Petitioners will equally benefits from it .
The 3rd respondents Counsel. Emeka Etiaba aligned himself with the submissions of the counsel to the 2nd respondents.
After taking all the submissions from the parties,the the Tribunal said they will regulate the trial and suggested the Petitioners which have listed 170 witnesses while the second respondents intend to call 128 witnesses.
The Tribunal adjourned to Tuesday 6-6-2023 by 12 noon and take all applications.
