Presidential election court admits 17 states’ result documents from Obi

Tamarauemi Ebimini

The Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja, on Tuesday, admitted in evidence results sheets from 17 states in Peter Obi’s petition seeking to upturn President Bola Tinubu’s victory in the 25 February poll.

Mr Obi vied for the Nigerian presidency on the platform of the Labour Party. He came third in the contest, behind the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, who came second. Atiku is similarly challenging Mr Tinubu’s victory in a separate suit.

Nigeria’s electoral commission, INEC, declared Mr Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the February presidential election.

But Mr Obi alleges electoral malpractices against INEC and Mr Tinubu. He said there were gross violations of the constitution and the electoral law during the election.

To prove his case, Mr Obi has been tendering tons of documentary evidence before the five-member panel of the court headed by Haruna Tsammani.

At the resumed hearing on Tuesday, Mr Obi’s lawyer, Ben Anichebe, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), tendered certified true copies of results sheets from ward collation centres of 17 states of the federation.

Mr Anichebe presented bundles of the results sheets from 21 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Adamawa State; eight LGAs of Bayelsa; 23 LGAs of Benue; 21 LGAs of Kogi State; 11 of Nasarawa State, 25 of Niger State, 18 of Ondo State and 23 of Sokoto State.

The lawyer further tendered the electoral documents from 25 LGAs of Delta State, 11 of Ekiti State, 25 LGAs of Imo; 21 of Kaduna State, 27 of Oyo State, 18 of Cross River; 15 of Edo State, 32 of Akwa Ibom State and 20 LGAs of Lagos State.

Mr Anichebe said similar result sheets from 13 LGAs of Ebonyi State would be tendered on Wednesday (7 June) because the state was not listed in the schedule of documents for the day.

But the respondents’ lawyers, Steve Adeh for INEC, Mike Igbokwe for Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettma and Professor Mamman Yusufari for the APC, all SANs, objected to the admissibility of the documents.

The lawyers promised to provide later detailed reasons for objecting to the admissibility of the documents.

After admitting the documents as exhibits, Mr Obi’s lawyer, Mr Anichebe, sought to adjourn the case until Wednesday.