Court admits final election results in Obi’s petition, PDP calls subpoenaed witness
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Peter Obi and his Labour Party (LP) have tendered the final results for the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja.
The final results in Form EC8D(a) were tendered by Paul Annanaba, SAN on behalf of Obi and the LP as part of evidence in support of the petition challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu as the winner of presidential election on February by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Tinubu, a member of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was sworn in as Nigeria’s 16th President on May 29.
The first to fourth respondents in the suit are the INEC, Tinubu, Vice President Kassim Shettima, and the APC.
The respondents, through their lawyers all agreed to the presentation of the national results for all the states and the FCT, and they were admitted by PEPC Chairman Haruna Tsammani.
The petitioners also tendered as evidence in support of their petition, form EC8Cs from 13 states – Bayelsa, Benue, Cross-river, Ebonyi, Edo, Lagos, Niger, Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto, Ekiti, and Delta.
Form EC8C is used for collating election results at council level. Results at ward level are entered into this form.
However, the respondents, through their counsel, all objected to the admissibility of the form EC8Cs, explaining to the court they would explain the reasons for their objection in their final written addresses.
The court rejected the objection and admitted the forms in evidence and marked them as exhibits.
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PDP’s subpoenaed witness
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, called their first subpoenaed witness at the PEPC in their petition against Tinubu’s victory, according to reporting by The PUNCH.
PDP counsel Chris Uche, SAN told the court the petitioners were set to call their first subpoenaed witness, an ad hoc employee of the INEC, but the respondents through their counsel objected to taking the testimony.
As soon as the witness entered the witness box, before he could take his oath, INEC counsel A.B. Mahmoud, SAN rose in objection, saying he was only served this morning with the statement and he would have to study it to facilitate cross-examination.
Both Tinubu’s lawyer, Akin Olujimi, SAN and APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN shared the same view and opposed the move by the petitioners.
But Uche argued there was nothing strange in the statement of the witness to warrant adjournment, and pleaded with the court to allow at least one of the subpoenaed witnesses to make judicious use of the allotted time.
Tsammani proposed to stand down the trial for 30 minutes to enable respondents look at the documents and thereby cross-examine the first subpoenaed witness.
Mahmoud insisted the witness could not be taken because he “is said to be an ad-hoc staff of the Commission,” and as such, he would have to check the records of the INEC to confirm his status.
Earlier, the petitioners called their 11th witness, Anambra PDP Chairman Ndubuisi Nwobu, who told the court during cross-examination by Fagbemi that the results were disputed at the ward and council levels before they arrived at the state level.
He said they collated the results because they did not have any other alternative.
When asked if he put that in his witness statement on oath, he explained it was not possible to write in the statement everything that happened.
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