Peter Obi, the Labour Party (LP) 2023 presidential candidate has tendered more evidence in court to support his suit challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu at the February 25 polls.
At the resumed hearing on Thursday, Obi and his party, Labour Party tendered 18,088 blurred polling unit result sheets among other documents before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT).
The documents were tendered through their lawyer, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN).
Also during Thursday’s hearing, the petitioners presented their fourth witness, Eric Uwadiegwu Ofoedu, who identified himself as a Professor of Mathematics at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.
A copy of a letter, written to Prof.Ofoedu by the LP, dated February 20, 2023, engaging him to help the party analyze data in respect of the February 25 presidential election and the subpoena issued on him to attend court and produce the said documents were also tendered.
The lawyers to the respondents – Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) for President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettma, and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) for the All Progressives Congress (APC) all objected to the tendering of majority of the documents, promising however to give their reasons for their objection at the final written address stage.
They also expressed displeasure that they were only served the written statement of Ofoedu a few minutes before the court proceedings began, arguing that they ought to be served earlier to enable them study the statement for the purpose of cross-examination.
It was however, agreed by lawyers to both parties that the witness should be allowed to testify in-chief and return on Friday for the respondents to cross examine him, a position the court adopted in a brief ruling.
At the conclusion of his testimony in-chief on Thursday, the Presiding Justice, Justice Haruna Tsammani ordered the witness to return on Friday at 9 am for the purpose of cross examination.
The petitioners also called its fifth witness (PW5), Lumnie Edevbie, another subpoenaed witness, who described himself as an official of Arise News (a private television channel).
They tendered, through Edevbie, a flash drive, containing a video recording of a presentation by INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu at the Chatham House, London.
In the video played in the open court, the INEC Chairman spoke among others, about his agency’s preparation for the last general elections.
He said INEC planned to deploy technology, which include the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the uploading of polling unit results to INEC results viewing portal, where anyone could view it.
Prof. Yakubu said the results to be uploaded to the INEC Results Viewing (IREV) portal were the same thing as the polling unit result sheets (EC8A) which are distributed to party agents.
Another petitioners’ lawyer, Patrick Ikwueto (SAN) said he planned to show another video on Friday afternoon when proceedings are expected to resume.