Former Vice President, Atiku Abubakar and presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 general election on Wednesday, expressed his concern over inability of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to make the certified true copies of electoral materials, for which he paid N6.9 million available to him.
Atiku and his party, in their joint petition marked; CA/PEPC/05/2023, are challenging the declaration of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election on the ground of gross violation of the constitution, the Electoral Act and INEC’s guidelines for the conduct of the election.
When the petition came up for continuation of hearing on Wednesday, the petitioners, through their counsel, Chief Chris Uche (SAN) informed the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja of their inability to get the certified true copies of the electoral documents they needed to tender in their petition against Tinubu’s election, despite payment of N6.69 million as demanded by the electoral body.
According to Uche, “We had a challenge with some of the documents we have applied for and paid for from INEC.
“Thank God, counsel to the first respondent (INEC), Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) promised to cooperate with us and we have sent a letter to him highlighting the remnants of the documents which we are in need of.
“He told us that some of the documents are not in Abuja. We paid N6.69 million for the certified true copies of the documents. We hope to get the documents by Thursday”, Uche added.
The Court however admitted Form EC8Bs from ten Local Government Areas of Kogi State, which were tendered by the petitioners and marked them as exhibit PW1- PW10, even though, INEC that conducted the election, Tinubu and the APC, who are the first to third respondents in the petition objected to the tendering of the documents and reserved their reasons to the final stage of address.
Also during the Wednesday’s proceedings, INEC, Tinubu and the APC, through their counsel opposed the request by the petitioners to call three subpoenaed witnesses from INEC to testify against Tinubu’s victory.
The respondents told the court that they are not ready to cross examine the witnesses as their statements were not front loaded as required by law.
INEC, in its objection said the commission ought to have verified the identity of the subpoenaed witnesses to know whether they are Ad-Hoc Staff of the commission as claimed by the petitioners.
On that ground, the five-member panel of Justice of the court, headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned till Thursday, June 8 for continuation of hearing.
Earlier, the petitioners called their 11th witness, Hon. Ndibuisi Nwobu, the Anambra state chapter of the PDP who told the court that he signed form EC8D because it was made a condition for him to get a copy of the result sheet.
The witness, who adopted the statement on oath he made at the registry of the court on March 21, accused INEC of failing to transmit election results from the polling units to its portal electronically as promised.
READ ALSO FROM NIGERIAN TRIBUNE
