Mr. Peter Obi, Labour Party, LP Presidential candidate who alleged that the 2023 presidential election was rigged, on Friday (June 2, 2023), tendered before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, 136 additional exhibits to support his claim.
The exhibits, which were admitted in evidence by Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel, comprised of results of the presidential election from six states of the federation.
The states whose presidential election results were included in Forms EC8A that the court recognized were Adamawa, Bayelsa, Oyo, Edo, Lagos, and Akwa Ibom.
Third-place finisher Obi testified before the court that the election results he presented as proof were authenticated copies he had gotten from the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC.
He submitted the election results from 115 Local Government Areas, or LGAs, on Thursday in the states of Rivers, Niger, Benue, Cross River, Osun, and Ekiti.
The petitioners asked the court for permission to submit additional results from six LGAs in Rivers State, which were accepted and designated as Exhibits PB 16 to PB 21 at the resumed proceedings on Friday (June 2, 2023).
The additional Rivers State results, however, which INEC claimed were “strange” to them, were not accepted.
The legal counsel for INEC, Mr. Kemi Pinhero, SAN, informed the court that the Commission would outline its arguments against the results’ admissibility in its final written statement.
In addition, Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, the attorney for President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima, as well as Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the attorney for the All Progressives Congress, the party in power, contested the results’ admissibility as evidence.
In their final written response, the respondents stated that they would also reserve their justifications for contesting the validity of the election results.
Following that, Exhibit PE 24—an additional result from Bida LGA in Niger State—was submitted as evidence before the court by Obi and the LP.
While the court accepted results from 21 LGAs in the state of Adamawa and designated them as Exhibits PH 1 to PH 21, it also accepted results from 8 LGAs in the state of Bayelsa and designated them as Exhibits PJ 1 to PJ 8.
Results from 18 LGAs in Edo state were designated as Exhibits PL1–PL 18, while results from 31 LGAs in Oyo were also submitted and accepted by the court as Exhibits PK 1–PK 31.
The petitioners also submitted election results from 31 LGAs in Akwa Ibom state, which were accepted as exhibits as Exhibits PM 1 through PM 20. They also submitted election results from 20 LGAs in Lagos state.
Remember that even though Obi won the presidential election in Lagos State, he claimed in his appeal that there had been widespread vote rigging in the state and that voters who would have supported him had been openly threatened or harassed.
Meanwhile, the Justice Tsammani-led panel reversed its initial decision to resume the hearing on Saturday upon agreement from all parties.
Even though the petitioners’ main attorney, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu, SAN, stated that his team was prepared to appear before the court on Saturday, the respondents’ attorneys took turns pleading with the court to postpone further hearing of the case until next Monday, and the panel granted their request.
The tribunal will resume hearing on the appeal that was presented to it by Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who finished second in the presidential election, at 3 p.m. in the interim.
