In order to support his case against President Bola Tinubu, PDP candidate Atiku Abubakar has submitted 118 evidence to the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
After receiving 8,794,726 votes, Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, was declared the victor of the election on February 25.
PDP and Atiku, who were upset with the outcome, went before the tribunal to contest Tinubu’s victory on a number of different grounds.
The petitioners claimed that Tinubu “was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election” among other things.
They further claimed that the president “was not qualified to run at the time of the election.”
Additionally, the petitioners claimed that Tinubu’s age and academic credentials were inconsistent.
Atiku presented his first set of exhibits to the court on Tuesday at the start of the hearing through one of his attorneys, Eyitayo Jegede.
Certified copies of the presidential election results from the 36 federated states and the federal capital territory (FCT) were among the documents offered in evidence before a five-member judicial panel.
Along with a list of the number of permanent voter cards (PVCs) used for the election in each of the 36 states and the FCT, the petitioners also submitted printouts of data they had received from the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS).
They were accepted as proof.
The court was informed by each of the respondents in the case that they would reserve their objections to any documents until their final written response.
There were no witnesses cited by the petitioners.
Peter Obi, the presidential candidate for the Labour Party (LP), and the tribunal have already begun hearing their case.
Lawrence Nwakaeti, the first witness for the petitioners, testified in court that Tinubu was charged with cocaine trafficking in the US and allegedly forfeited $460,000. He was accompanied in testimony by Jibrin Okutekpa. Before the court, documents were tendered.
Wole Olanipekun, counsel for Tinubu and Shettima, interrogated the witness, and during cross-examination, the witness said the money forfeited was in a civil forfeiture action.
He further acknowledged that there was no certificate from either the US consulate in Nigeria or the Nigerian consulate in the paperwork related to the aforementioned US court proceedings, which were labelled “exhibit PA5”.
Nwakaeti alleged that the documents were also missing a certificate signed by a police officer in the US, where he claimed Tinubu was convicted, during cross-examination by Lateef Fagbemi, an attorney for the APC.
Wednesday (May 31, 2023) has been set aside for the continuation of the hearing on both petitions.
