President Tinubu’s Legal Team Fail to Stop Obi from Tendering Exhibits in Court

Lawyers representing President Tinubu tried but failed to stop Labour Party and its candidate, Mr. Peter Obi from tendering additional exhibits in Court today.

ENigeria Newspaper reports that the President’s legal team represented in court by Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN) vehemently opposed moves by the Labour Party and Peter Obi to tender an additional 191 exhibits in about 157 Local Government Areas of the country – including results from the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) Viewing Portal (IReV) obtained from five states.

Peter Obi and the Labour Party in their petition No: CA/PEPC/03/2023 are challenging the declaration of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and his All Progressives Congress (APC) as winners of the 2023 Presidential election. To further prove their case, they today tendered exhibits comprising result sheets and reports used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the election.

According to The Sun Newspaper, there was stiff opposition against the admissibility in evidence by counsel to INEC, President Bola Tinubu, vice president Kashim Shettima, and the APC, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) admitted as exhibits to be used in the prosecution of the petition.

A breakdown of the documents tendered showed that the petitioners tendered IReV reports from 101 Local Government Areas obtained in five States of Adamawa (21 LGAs): Akwa Ibom (25); Ogun (20); Ekiti (16) and Rivers (19) respectively.

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A Total of 191 other documents including certified true copies of INEC Forms EC40Gs; EC40G1; EC40GPU and reports were obtained from 56 LGAs from 4 states of the federation.
The states are Niger (10 LGAs); Osun (15 LGAs); Edo (15 LGAs); and Sokoto (11 LGAs) respectively.

The electoral materials were tendered by a senior lawyer in the petitioner’s legal team, Mr. Peter Afoba, SAN.

Besides, the Labour Party’s presidential candidate also tendered 5 Reports on the conduct of the election in Niger State and 8 in Edo to back up his allegations of malpractices during the conduct of the election.

The admission of the exhibits was vehemently opposed by counsel to the respondents, who were represented by Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN) for Tinubu and Shettima; Abubakar Mahmoud(SAN) for INEC, and Afolabi Fashanu (SAN) for APC.

Regardless, the Justice Haruna Tsammani led five-member panel admitted them and marked them as exhibits to be used by the court in the prosecution of the petition.

Meanwhile, the Court has shifted further hearing in the petition to June 14.