Hearing in LP’s, Obi’s petition stalled

Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, failed to continue their case yesterday before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).

The court had fixed further hearing for 9 am and allotted four hours to them.

But the petitioners’ lawyer, Prof Awa Kalu (SAN), said they had planned to start with tendering of documents, but two key secretariat staff took ill.

He sought an adjournment till today.

Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Wole Olanipekun (SAN) for President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettma, and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) for the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not object to Kalu’s request for adjournment.

Mahmoud, however, urged the court to record the day against the petitioners and deduct it.

Presiding Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned till 9 am.

The petitioners called a witness and tendered two sets of documents.

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Atiku Abubakar continued with the presentation of their case by tendering more documents, including result sheets.

The first set of documents tendered by the lawyer to the PDP and Atiku, Eyitayo Jegede (SAN), was certified true copies (CTC) of Form EC8A downloaded and certified by INEC for Abia State.

The second set was CTCs of Form EC8A downloaded and certified by INEC for Bayelsa, Kaduna and Ogun states.


The third set of documents was CTCs of Form EC8E for Kaduna and Kogi states.

The fourth was CTCs of Form EC8C for 20 local government areas in Kaduna.

The fifth set of documents tendered were CTCs of three copies of Form EC40G for Kaduna and 10 copies of a similar form for Ogun.

The sixth set were CTCs of the printouts of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and accreditation data in respect of 33 states, except Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Lagos states.

Lawyers for INEC, President Tinubu and the APC objected to the admissibility of some of the documents.

In respect of the CTCs of the Form EC8E tendered for Kogi, Kemi Pinheiro (SAN) for INEC; Emmanuel Ukala (SAN) for Tinubu and Adeniyi Akintola (SAN) for the APC objected to the admissibility of the forms on all LGAs in Kogi, except those for Olamaboro, Ofu, Omala, Okehi and Ajaokuta.

The court adjourned the hearing in the petition by Atiku and the PDP till 2 pm.