Bundles of election-related documents from six geo-political zones elections on February 25 were allowed into evidence on Thursday by the Presidential Election Petition Court.
The Labour Party and Peter Obi, who ran for president in the 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 petition’s respondents raised a dispute about whether the Certified True Copies of the papers submitted to the court should be allowed to be admitted into evidence.
In their final written addresses, they promised to explain their views in more detail.
The INEC declared that it was against the admissibility of the documents, but the President, Bola Tinubu, objected to the submission of documents through his team of attorneys, which was led by Wole Olanikpekun SAN.
Similar to this, the APC objected to the documents presented as evidence.
The legal team for INEC, lead by Kemi Pinheiro, SAN, also argued against the admissibility of the documents.
However, the records from the 15 LGAs of Rivers states were accepted by the five-person PEPC panel, which was led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, and were designated as Exhibits PB1 to PB15.
Election forms from 23 LGAs in the state of Benue, designated as Exhibits PT1–PT23, were among the documents that the court also accepted as evidence.
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.