Bundles of electoral documents from the February 25 presidential election were allowed into evidence on Thursday by the Presidential Election Petition Court.
The Labour Party and Peter Obi, who ran for president in the most recent election, submitted the documents in support of their lawsuit contesting the results of the election in which Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was declared the victor by the Independent National Electoral Commission. The documents consisted of 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 in regard to 18 states of the federation through the legal team led by Awa Kalu SAN.
However, before their given time ran out, they could only produce documents from 6 states.
The local government areas of Rivers, Benue, Cross River, Niger, Osun, and Ekiti submitted their results sheets on Thursday before the allotted time had run out.
They presented the court with EC8A forms from 15 Local Government Areas of Rivers states in addition to other forms.
The petitioners, who had originally informed the court that they planned to produce the bundle of papers for 21 LGAs in Rivers state, appeared unable to reconcile the list in their presentation and instead offered 15.
However, the respondents in the petition objected to the admissibility of the Certified True Copies of the documents which were presented before the court.
They said they would advance reasons behind their objections in their final written addresses.
The President, Bola Tinubu, through his team of lawyers led by Wole Olanikpekun SAN, objected to the tendering of documents even as the INEC said it was opposed to the admissibility of the documents.
In a similar vein, the APC opposed the documents in evidence.
Furthermore, INEC’s team of lawyers led by Kemi Pinheiro, SAN opposed the admissibility of the documents.
However, the five-man panel of the PEPC headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani admitted the documents from the 15 LGAs of Rivers states and marked them as Exhibits PB1 to PB15.
Among other documents also admitted by the court as evidence were the electoral forms from 23 LGAs in Benue state which were marked as Exhibits PT1-PT23.
The results of the presidential election from 18 LGAs in the Cross River state, designated as Exhibits PD1–PD18, were also entered as evidence.
It also acknowledged the outcomes from the LGAs in Niger State, Osun, and Ekiti.
The panel therefore postponed further action on Obi’s plea until June 2, 2023, to allow for continuation.
