From Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The legal team of the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) at the Presidential Election Petition Court(PEPC), yesterday, opposed the admissibility of documents tendered by the Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Yakubu Mahmood before the court.
The documents included INEC Form EC8D series which has the results of the February 25 presidential election for the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory(FCT); Form EC8DA, which is the final declaration of results; certified true copies of accreditation date from Bimodal Voters Accreditation System(BVAS) machines in respect of the 36 states and FCT and INEC Form EC9 which is the form submitted by Bola Tinubu, candidate of the APC.
The documents were tendered by a Deputy Director, Certification and Complainant, Legal drafting and Clearance Department of the Commission, Morenikeji Tahiru, who represented INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood.
The INEC chairman was summoned before the court on the request of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, to produce those documents which they needed to prosecute their petition.
However, lead counsel to the commission, Abubakar Mahmoud, opposed the admissibility of the documents in evidence, saying “many of those documents are not relevant and have no certification”.
Other respondents also objected to the admissibility of the documents, but reserved their arguments for the final address.
Responding to Mahmoud’s claim of non-payment, Uche said his clients already paid N6.7 million for the certification of the documents.
Earlier at the court session, Samuel Oduntan, the petitioners’ 21st witness, was cross-examined by the respondents’ lawyers.
Also, a statistician and forensic examiner for Atiku Abubakar, Samuel Oduntan, urged the court to deduct “irregular votes” from the 2023 presidential election results declared in favour of Bola Tinubu by INEC.
Oduntan made the request, yesterday, while under cross-examination by counsel to INEC, Tinubu and APC. The witness said he studied the polling unit results from across the federation, alongside six team members and discovered that alleged irregular votes were entered across the states including where the PDP won.
Under cross-examination by Tinubu and Shettima’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, he admitted however that he did not attach pictorial samples of any of the INEC forms he referred to in his report.
He explained that he did not have to attach them to his report because he was convinced the PDP lawyers would tender INEC electoral forms as exhibits to buttress his assessment of the polls.
“Did you take the votes of all the 18 political parties into consideration during your analysis?,” Olanipekun asked, to which the witness responded in the affirmative.
He was asked severally to tell the court if he was not satisfied with votes given to Atiku Abubakar because of the irregularities he discovered.
The witness maintained he was not satisfied with irregular votes entered across the states, adding “and that is why we seek a deduction.”
Under further cross-examination by Lateef Fagbemi, Oduntan admitted he had been following and analysing INEC conduct of elections since 1999.