The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Wednesday rejected most documents tendered by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar before the Presidential Election Petition Court.
The rejection followed the admissibility of the document in compliance with the pre-hearing reports binding on all parties in the petition as ordered by the court.
This is contrary to the submissions made by INEC during the pre-hearing that they would not object to any document fully certified by the commission, AIT reports.
At the commencement of the proceeding, counsel for Atiku and PDP, Chris Uche SAN, said the team had prepared a second schedule of documents to be tendered, adding that the documents were fully served on the respondents.
Most of the documents tendered in court include INEC Certified True Copies of declaration of results, a summary of results, print out of the BVAS report for each polling unit in the 36 states, and the number of PVCs collected in 36 states, including the FCT.
Part of the documents also tendered by the petitioners is the printed copy of BVAS and accreditation data with details, including time stamps for 33 states.
INEC’s counsel Abubakar Mahmoud objected to all except Kogi, Sokoto and Rivers states.
They are also not consenting to downloaded materials from the IREV portal, including the inputs of polling units cancelled and that of voters who could not vote.
However, the Petitioner’s counsel prayed the court to deem the documents as read under provisions of paragraph 46(A) of the first schedule of the Electoral Act.
Having tendered the documents, Justice Haruna Tsammani admitted them as evidence and adjourned the hearing to June 1, 2023.
Earlier in the day, the hearing of Peter Obi and the Labour Party’s petition at the presidential election petition court was stalled as their counsel, Awa Kalu, informed the court that two of their key staff at the secretariat took ill and, as such, the presentation of documents which the petitioners intended could not be achieved.
Obi and Labour Party, who had three weeks to prove their case, now have 19 days to call 49 more witnesses, while the Atiku and the PDP are yet to call any witnesses but have tendered all exhibits before the court.
