Obi, LP Presents Tenders Electoral Documents to Court

Bundles of election-related documents from six federation-wide elections on February 25 were allowed into evidence on Thursday by the Presidential Election Petition Court.

In support of their lawsuit contesting the results of the election in which Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Labour Party and its presidential candidate in the most recent election, Peter Obi, submitted the documents, which included forms EC8A, which are polling unit results.

The petitioners informed the court during Thursday’s proceedings that they will provide the Certified True Copies of the papers as evidence regarding 18 states of the federation through the legal team led by Awa Kalu SAN.

However, only 6 of the documents were presented before their allotted time was over. The result sheets presented were from Local Government Areas of the following states: Rivers, Benue, Cross River, Niger, Osun, and Ekiti.

Among other forms EC8As that they tendered before the court were the forms from 15 Local Government Areas of Rivers states.

The petitioners, who earlier informed the court of their desire to provide the bundle of forms for 21 LGAs in the state of Rivers, were unable to reconcile the list in their presentation and subsequently tendered 15.

The documents from the 15 LGAs of Rivers states were marked by Justice Haruna Tsammani  as Exhibits PB1 to PB15

The petition’s respondents raised objections, though, to the admissibility of the Certified True Copies of the papers that were submitted to the court.

In their final written addresses, they promised to explain the rationale behind their reservations.

Bola Tinubu, the president, raised concerns about the submission of documents through his legal team, which was led by Wole Olanikpekun SAN, notwithstanding INEC’s assertions to the contrary.

Meanwhile, the APC has opposed the documents in evidence. The legal team for INEC, led by Kemi Pinheiro, SAN, also advocated against the admissibility of the documents.

The court also admitted electoral forms from 23 LGAs in Benue state which were marked as Exhibits PT1-PT23.

It also admitted in evidence were results of the presidential election from 18 LGAs in Cross River state and marked as Exhibits PD1-PD18.

 Results from LGAs in Niger State, Osun and Ekiti were also admitted. Following that, the panel postponed further action on Obi’s appeal until June 2, 2023, for continuation.