The Presidential Election Petition Court on Thursday admitted evidence of electoral documents from six state, that the Labour Party’s candidate in February 25 presidential election, Peter Obi, tendered in his case against President Bola Tinubu.
The result sheets tendered on Thursday before the exhaustion of their slated hours were from Local Government Areas of the following states: Rivers, Benue, Cross River, Niger, Osun, and Ekiti.
The documents which consisted of forms EC8A which are polling units results were tendered by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate in the last election, Peter Obi, in aid of their suit challenging the outcome of the election in which Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was declared as the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission.
However, they were only able to present documents from 6 states before their allotted time was over.
According to ‘The Punch’, the result sheets tendered on Thursday before the exhaustion of their slated hours 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 initially told the court of their intention to present the bundle of forms for 21 LGAs of Rivers state seemed unable to reconcile the list in their presentation and subsequently tendered 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.
