President/APC lawyers tender Labour Party membership register, close defence
The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) yesterday heard that Labour Party (LP) candidate in the February 25 poll Peter Obi was not a member when he was nominated.
President Bola Ahmed Tinubu told the tribunal that Obi’s name is not on the party’s membership register submitted to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Senate Majority Leader, Opeyemi Bamidele, testified as the sole witness of President Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettma in their defence of the petition by Obi and LP.
Counsel for the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), drew Bamidele’s attention to the LP’s membership register for Anambra State, which was already in evidence, and asked him to confirm whether Obi’s name was on it.
Bamidele looked at the document and told the court that Obi’s name was not on the register, which the LP submitted to INEC with an April 25, 2022 cover letter.
Tinubu and Shettma had argued that not being a member of the party, Obi was not qualified to contest on the LP platform.
‘Tinubu is not involved in criminal forfeiture’
Bamidele said the petitioners wrongly stated the law under which the civil forfeiture proceedings in the United States District Court involving President Tinubu were conducted.
He said they created the wrong impression that it was a criminal forfeiture.
Bamidele said as a lawyer licensed to practice in the U.S. and a member of the American Bar Association (ABA), he knew that for there to be a conviction, there must be a charge, an arraignment and a defence.
He said the February 3, 2003 letter from the then Inspector General of Police (IGP) Tafa Balogun requesting criminal records of Tinubu in the U.S., and the February 4 response by the US Embassy in Nigeria, signed by the Legal Attache, Michael Bonner, effectively cleared Tinubu of any criminal records in the U.S.
The U.S. Embassy’s response, which was admitted in evidence, states that all record searches did not reveal that Tinubu was ever involved in any criminal case or was ever convicted.
The Nation
