The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has admitted in evidence, documents tendered by the presidential candidate of Labour Party, Mr. Peter Obi in defence of his petition against President Bola Tinubu.

The documents which were tendered through the petitioner’s first witness, Mr. Lawrence Nwakaeti, included a United States District Court judgment.

The judgment reportedly indicted Tinubu and ordered his forfeiture of $460,000 in a drug related offence.

Nwakaeti who was led in evidence by Obi’s counsel, told the court that he was a registered voter and that he voted at a polling unit in his hometown in Anambra on Feb. 25.

Counsel to the respondents raised objections to the admission of the document in evidence but reserved their arguments to their objections until the final address stage.

Under cross examination by counsel to Tinubu,  the witness admitted that the judgment was not registered in Nigeria.

Nwakaeti also admitted that there was no certificate from any Consular in Nigeria or America in support of the judgment, but that the judgement was obtained and certified by the person in whose custody it was.

The witness told the court that he had been to the United States and also that he had read the judgment in its entirety adding that he would be surprised if no mention was made of the $460,000 forfeiture in it. While also cross examining the witness, counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC) sought to know if the document had the certification of any police officer in the United States.

“Do you have a certificate given under the hand of a police officer in the United States where the alleged conviction took place.

“Are you aware of a formal clearance report dated Feb. 4, 2003 issued under the legal attache’ of the United States embassy in respect of the alleged indictment and forfeiture?”

The witness told the court that he had no certificate from the police and t was not aware of any such report. The witness further told the court that he did not have the charges against Tinubu because there were no charges since the indictment was from a civil forfeiture proceeding.

Similarly, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Abubakar Atiku along with the party  also opened their case by tendering documents to support their petition.

One of the documents tendered by counsel to the petitioners, was the Form EC 8E which is the final declaration of winners result.

Jegede also tendered the Bimodal Voters Accreditation Systems Machines, (BVAS) report from all the 36 states including  the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.

He also tendered INEC certified documents in respect of number of registered voters as well as number of Permanent Voter Cards (PVC)s collected in all the 36 states including the FCT.

Having tendered the documents, the Chairman of the Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani admitted them in evidence.

Justice Tsammani subsequently adjourned the case until Wednesday for continuation of proceedings.

NAN reports that Atiku and the PDP approached the PEPC challenging the declaration of President Bola Tinubu as winner of the Feb. 25 Presidential Election.

Atiku urged the court to declare him winner of the election or in the alternative to cancel the election and order a fresh election due to alleged irregularities that marred the poll in thousands of polling units.