Atiku Abubakar, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic
Party (PDP), has tendered 118 exhibits before the presidential election
petition court (PEPC) to prove his case against President Bola Tinubu.
Tinubu, the standard bearer of the All Progressives Congress
(APC), was declared the winner of the February 25 election after scoring
8,794,726 votes.
Aggrieved by the outcome, PDP and Atiku approached the
tribunal challenging Tinubu’s victory on several grounds.
Among several issues raised, the petitioners alleged that
Tinubu “was not duly elected by the majority of lawful votes cast at the
election”.
They also alleged that the president “was at the time of the
election, not qualified to contest”.
The petitioners further alleged inconsistencies in Tinubu’s
age and school certificates.
At the commencement of the hearing on Tuesday, Atiku
tendered his first set of exhibits before the court through one of his lawyers,
Eyitayo Jegede.
Documents tendered in evidence before a five-member panel of
the court included certified copies of the results of the presidential election
from the 36 states of the federation and the federal capital territory (FCT).
The petitioners also tendered printouts of data they
obtained from the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) and a record of the
number of permanent voter cards (PVC) used for the election across the 36
states and FCT.
They were admitted in evidence.
All the respondents in the matter told the court that they
would reserve their objections to any of the documents, till their final
written address.
The petitioners did not call any witnesses.
OBI AND LP’S PETITION
Meanwhile, the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential
candidate, Peter Obi, have also opened their case before the tribunal.
Led in evidence by Jibrin Okutekpa, the petitioners’ first
witness, Lawrence Nwakaeti, told the court that Tinubu was indicted for drug
trafficking in the United States and allegedly forfeited $460,000. Documents
were tendered before the court.
However, under cross-examination by Wole Olanipekun, counsel
to Tinubu and Shettima, the witness said the money forfeited was in a civil
forfeiture case.
He also admitted that the documents in relation to the said
US court proceedings, which were marked “exhibit PA5,” were not accompanied by
a certificate from either the Nigerian consular in the US or the US consular in
Nigeria.
Nwakaeti stated during cross-examination by Lateef Fagbemi,
APC counsel, that the documents were also not accompanied by a certificate
issued under the hand of a police officer in the US where he claimed Tinubu was convicted.
The continuation of the hearing in both petitions was fixed
for Wednesday.
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