The presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has submitted the official national results of the February 25 presidential election at the Presidential Election Petitions Court.
Counsel to the LP, Professor Paul Ananaba (SAN) tendered the form EC8DA, which is the official national results of the election.
Ananaba also tendered the remaining exhibits in forms EC8As, EC8Bs and EC8Cs, which are polling units, wards and local government’s collation respectively for about 18 states where they are challenging the election results.
Some of the states tendered and admitted are Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Lagos, Niger, Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto, Ekiti and Delta.
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INEC accepts nat’l results, objects to states’
For the first time, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not object to the Labour Party (LP) and Peter Obi’s tendering of result sheets of the national collation for the February 25 presidential election.
INEC’s counsel, Kemi Pinheiro (SAN) did not give reasons for the non-objection to the official national result, although the electoral umpire had objected to all other documents tendered by the LP.
Similarly, President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) through their lawyers: Akin Olujinmi (SAN) and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) did not oppose the tendering of the final national results but those of the polling units, wards, local governments and states presented by the LP.
LP’s counsel, Ananaba informed the court that they are ready to tender forms EC40G series, which are forms for materials distribution across states, at the next hearing.
He said they will be responding to the reasons made for objecting and not objecting to the documents tendered before the court.
PDP’s subpoenaed election ad hoc staff fail to testify
Meanwhile, three subpoenaed witnesses of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who are INEC ad hoc staff failed to testify at the hearing yesterday.
The five-member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani was forced to shift hearing in the matter to Thursday following the opposition to the testimonies of the three witnesses who were already called by the PDP.
Counsel to the PDP, Chris Uche (SAN) informed the court that the team had brought the subpoenaed witnesses, who worked in the field during the February 25 presidential election.
But counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN); Tinubu, Akin Olujimi (SAN) and APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) all submitted that they were yet to study the statements of the witnesses having not been pleaded in the PDP brief.
But Uche maintained that the statements have been served on the lawyers, adding that the witnesses were subpoenaed by the court.
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