From Godwin Tsa, Abuja

The Labour Party (LP) and its candidate, Mr Peter Obi, on Friday produced certified true copies of election results contained in Forms EC 8As from six states of the federation, in support of their petition challenging the result of the February 25 presidential election, won by President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

In their joint petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023, Obi and his Labour Party are contending that President Tinubu was not the valid winner of the election. They had on Thursday tendered the results in six states which were obtained from 115 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in evidence before the court.

The states are Rivers, Benue, Ekiti, Osun, Niger and Cross Rivers respectively. When proceedings resumed on Friday, the petitioners tendered further election results in six other states including Adamawa Bayelsa, Oyo, Edo, Lagos and Akwa Ibom.

The documents which were obtained from 109 Local Government Areas of the affected states comprised forms EC8A used in the February 25 presidential election and certified by the National Electoral Commission INEC as  true copies of the original were admitted as exhibits.

Before that, the petitioners had, after securing the permission of the court, tendered additional results from six LGAs in Rivers State, which were admitted and marked as Exhibits PB 16 to PB 21.

But in a swift response, counsel to INEC, Kemi Pinheiro, SAN, opposed the admissibility of the additional results from Rivers State, which it said were “strange” to it.

The senior lawyer who led INEC’s legal team, told the court that the commission would advance reasons why it opposed the admissibility of the results in its final written address.

His objection to the admissibility of the election results from Rivers State, opened a floodgates of rejection as counsel to President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima, Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, as well as that of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, challenged the admittance of the results in evidence.

It was the position of counsel to the respondents that reasons for their objections would be accommodated in their final written address.

The petitioners consequently proceeded to tender in evidence, additional result from Bida LGA in Niger State, which was admitted as Exhibit PE 24. Furthermore, the court admitted results from 21 LGAs in Adamawa State and marked them as Exhibits PH 1 to PH 21 including results of the presidential election from eight LGAs in Bayelsa State that were marked as Exhibits PJ1 to PJ 8.

Equally tendered by the petitioners were results from 31 LGAs in Oyo that were admitted as Exhibits PK 1 – PK 31, while results from 18 LGAs in Edo State were marked as Exhibits PL1- PL 18. The petitioners further tendered results of the presidential election from 20 LGAs in Lagos State which were admitted as Exhibits PM 1 – PM 20, with results from 31 LGAs in Akwa Ibom State, accepted in evidence as Exhibits PN 1 – PN 31.