The presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi in the February 25 general elections, has tendered 136 additional exhibits before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, sitting in Abuja, to support his claim that election was rigged.
SaharaReporters had reported that Obi and his party, LP are challenging the election of President Bola Tinubu, who contested the poll on the platform of the All Progressives Congress APC.
Obi came third in the election Bola Tinubu was declared winner and president-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
According to INEC election results declaration, APC candidate, Tinubu, polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat Atiku Abubakar of the opposition People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 6,984,520 votes and Labour Party’s Peter Obi had 6,101,533 votes to come third.
However, Obi had on Thursday tendered some exhibits comprising results of the election from 115 Local Government Areas, LGAs, in Rivers, Niger, Benue, Cross River, Osun, Ekiti.
During the resumed hearing on Friday, Obi through his team of lawyers tendered additional 136 exhibits which were admitted in evidence by the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel. The exhibits comprised of results of the presidential election from six states of the federation.
According to Vanguard report, the states the court admitted their presidential election results contained in Forms EC8A, were; Adamawa, Bayelsa, Oyo, Edo, Lagos and Akwa Ibom.
Obi, through his team of lawyers told the court that the results he tendered in evidence, were certified true copies he obtained from the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
The reported that at the resumed proceedings on Friday, the petitioners, obtained permission of the court to submit additional results from six LGAs in Rivers State, which were admitted and marked as Exhibits PB 16 to PB 21.
However, INEC, opposed the admissibility of the additional results from Rivers State, which it said were “strange” to it.
Mr. Kemi Pinhero, SAN, who led INEC’s legal team, told the court that the Commission would advance reasons why it opposed the admissibility of the results, in its final written address.
Likewise, counsel that represented President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima, Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, as well as that of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, challenged the admittance of the results in evidence.
The respondents said they would equally reserve their reasons for objecting to the admissibility of the election results, in their final written address.
Thereafter, Obi and the LP, tendered in evidence before the court, additional result from Bida LGA in Niger State, which was admitted as Exhibit PE 24.
Whereas the court admitted results from 21 LGAs in Adamawa state and marked them as Exhibits PH 1 to PH 21, it also admitted results of the presidential election from 8 LGAs in Bayelsa state and marked them as Exhibits PJ1 to PJ 8.
Also tendered, were results from 31 LGAs in Oyo, which the court admitted as Exhibits PK 1 – PK 31, while results from 18 LGAs in Edo state were marked as Exhibits PL1- PL 18.
The petitioners further tendered results of the presidential election from 20 LGAs in Lagos state which were admitted as Exhibits PM 1 – PM 20, with results from 31 LGAs in Akwa Ibom state, accepted in evidence as Exhibits PN 1 – PN 31.
SaharaReporters had reported that whereas Peter Obi and his party won the presidential election in Lagos State, he was challenging the results.
He had avowed in his petition that there was massive suppression of votes in the state insisting that electorates who would have voted for him, were openly harassed or intimidated.
Meanwhile, by consensus of all the parties, the Justice Tsammani-led panel vacated its initial decision to continue the hearing on Saturday.
Even though lead counsel for the petitioners, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, said his team was ready to appear before the court on Saturday,
however, counsel for all the respondents took turns to beg the court to shift further hearing of the case till next Monday, a request the panel acceded to.
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