No fewer than 118 exhibits have been tendered before the five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court by Atiku Abubakar who is the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in his case against President Bola Tinubu.
Africa Today News, New York recalls that Atiku and the PDP had earlier approached the tribunal to challenge the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s declaration of Tinubu, who contested under the All Progressives Congress, as the winner of the 25th of February polls.
Recall that Tinubu emerged as the winner of the election with 8,794,726 votes.
Atiku and the PDP, in their claims against Tinubu, stated that the president was ‘not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the election.’
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They also alleged that the president “was, at the time of the election, not qualified to contest”.
Eyitayo Jegede, one of Atiku’s lawyers, presented the court with his first set of exhibits at the commencement of the hearing on Tuesday.
Some of the exhibits tendered in evidence included certified copies of the results of the presidential election from the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory.
Other exhibits include printouts of data obtained from the bimodal voter accreditation system and records of the number of permanent voter cards used for the election across the 36 states and the FCT. All exhibits tendered were admitted as evidence.
Respondents in the case reserved their objections to any of the documents, until their final written address.
No witnesses were called by the petitioners during the hearing.
Africa Today News, New York reports that Labour Party (LP) and its candidate in the last presidential election, Mr Peter Obi, on Tuesday, commenced their case against the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu by calling their very first witness in the petition.
Through the witness, Mr. Lawrence Uchechukwu Nwakaeti, Obi and the LP tendered document; a United States of America (USA) District Court judgment which allegedly indicted Tinubu on drug-related offences and ordered his forfeiture of the total sum of $460,000 to the US.
The five-member panel of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PREPEC) had last adjourned to May 30 for commencement of hearing.