The Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi on Thursday tendered 18,088 blurred polling unit result sheets among other documents in continuation of the presentation of their case before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
Their lawyer, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), tendered the documents through the petitioners’ fourth witness (PW4), Eric Uwadiegwu Ofoedu, who described himself as a Professor of Mathematics at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka.
The petitioners also tendered report of the witness’ analysis of some election materials, a copy of a letter, written to him by the LP, dated February 20, 2023, engaging Prof Ofoedu to held the party analyse data in respect of the February 25 presidential election and the subpoena issued on him to attend court and produce the said documents.
Lawyer to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) for President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettma, and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) for the All Progressives Congress (APC) objected to the tendering of majority of the documents, promising to adduce reasons for their objection at the final written address stage.
Earlier, Mahmoud, Olanipekun and Fagbemi expressed displeasure that the petitioners only served them the written statement of Ofoedu few minutes before the court say, arguing that they ought to be served earlier to enable them study the statement for the purpose of cross examination.
It was however, agreed by lawyers to both parties that the witness should be allowed to testify in-chief and return on Friday for the respondents to cross examine him, a position the court adopted in a brief ruling.
At the conclusion of his testimony in-chief on Thursday, the Presiding Justice, Justice Haruna Tsammani ordered the witness to return on Friday at 9 am for the purpose of cross examination.
The petitioners also called its fifth witness (PW5), Lumnie Edevbie, another subpoenaed witness, who described himself as an official of Arive News (a private television channel).
They tendered, through Edevbie, a flash drive, containing a video recording of a presentation by INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu at the Chatham House, London.
In the video played in the open court, the INEC Chairman spoke among others, about his agency’s preparation for the last general elections.
He said INEC planned to deploy technology, which include the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the uploading of polling unit results to INEC results viewing portal, where anyone could view it.
Prof. Yakubu said the results to be uploaded to the INEC Results Viewing (IREV) portal where the same thing as the polling unit result sheets (EC8A) which are distributed to party agents.
Another petitioners’ lawyer, Patrick Ikwueto (SAN) said he planned to show another video on Friday afternoon when proceedings are expected to resume.
