The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja yesterday struck out the testimonies and statements of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC) National Chairman, Prince Tony Momoh who is supposed to be the Prosecution Witness 2(PW2) in the petition filed by the party challenging the victory of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the April 16, 2011 presidential election.
The new tribunal panel chairman, Justice Kumai Bayang Akaahs had told the parties in the matter that the slight change they have noticed in the composition of the panel was due to his introduction to the panel.
He clarified that before joining the panel he was reliably informed that the panel was still at the pre-hearing stage and that he could still come in due to the position he was going to occupy in the panel.
Justice Akaahs had first ruled that the respondents should abridged the time to file their responses to the application made by CPC to call more witnesses in view of its request access to and allow it take away copies of the biometric data used in the conduct of April 16 presidential election.
Consequently, the tribunal asked the respondents to file their responses today while the CPC application for more witnesses will be taken tomorrow.
However, the five man panel chaired by Justice Akaahs struck out all the depositions contained in Tony Momoh’s witness statement on oath upon application by CPC lawyer, Abubakar Malami (SAN), asking the court to correct the mix-up and substitute the CPC secretary, Buba Galadima’s witness statement for that of Tony Momoh who are by the record of the court PW 1 and PW 2 respectively.