Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has given reasons for opposing the tendering of many certified electoral documents brought to court by Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi to prove their case against President Bola Tinubu’s victory in the last presidential election.

The pair, who filed separate petitions to challenge Tinubu’s victory, alleged that the 25 February presidential poll was marred by widespread fraud.

To substantiate their claims, Atiku and Obi have tendered tons of electoral documents comprising data from the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines and results sheets from across states of Nigeria and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.

During the court’s pre-hearing sessions meant to streamline the procedures for hearing the substantive petitions, lawyers to parties in the suits agreed not to object to certified true copies of electoral documents obtained from INEC.

However, at the commencement of the trial on 30 May, INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, and Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, objected to the admissibility of the election documents that were obtained from the electoral umpire.

APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, equally opposed the admissibility of the documents as exhibits.

Friday’s proceedings

At Friday’s proceedings, one of INEC’s lawyers, Kemi Pinheiro, explained that the petitioners – Atiku and Obi, did not challenge the conduct of the election in the areas relating to the documents that were presented before the court.

Pinheiro said, “Issues were not joined in the local government areas where the result sheets were sought to be tendered before the court.”

He argued that it was wrong of Atiku and Obi to go beyond the areas where the polls are being challenged.

Specifically, the INEC lawyer accused Obi and the Labour Party of mixing up issues by bringing result sheets from places where they did not dispute the election outcome.

Pinheiro contended that the local government areas allegedly smuggled into court proceedings are “strange to the petition and cannot stand in the face of the law.”

As a result, the respondents said they would articulate their objections in written addresses at the close of arguments in the petitions.

Reacting to the objection to the admissibility of the electoral papers, Obi’s lead lawyer, Livy Uzoukwu, expressed shock at INEC’s comment.

Court intervenes

The panel chair, Tsammani, faulted INEC’s lawyer’s explanation concerning its objection to the admissibility of the documents.

The justice recalled that all lawyers to parties in the petitions had agreed to give such explanations at the address stage of proceedings.

In response, Pinhero apologised to the court.

The lawyer clarified that he was compelled to speak up owing to the barrage of media criticisms that trailed their objection to the tendering of the documents.

More documents tendered

At the resumed hearing on Friday, one of Obi’s lawyers, Peter Afoba, tendered additional electoral documents from 21 Local Government Areas of Adamawa and eight Local Government Areas of Bayelsa States and parts of Rivers and Niger States.

The court admitted the documents as exhibits.

PT