The court has admitted some presidential election results presented by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to support its claim against the victory of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
At the hearing presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani on Friday, lead counsel to Obi informed the court that he had a schedule of more evidence which they desire to render before the court.
The counsel continued with evidence (election results) from Rivers and Kogi states, presenting certified true copies of INEC election results from six local government areas (LGAs) in Rivers as evidence.
Also admitted were results from Niger, Adamawa, Oyo, Bayelsa, and Edo states tendered by the LP.
The petitioner also presented additional certified true copies of election results from Bida LGA of Niger and 21 LGAs in Adamawa.
Again, counsel to the first, second and third respondents objected to the admissibility of the evidence.
However, the court admitted the documents as evidence, while awaiting the arguments of the respondents who were opposed to the admissibility of the documents.
Additional evidence tendered by the petitioner are from eight LGAs in Bayelsa, 31 LGAs in Oyo, and 18 LGAs in Edo.
The Labour Party also presented further evidence from 20 LGAs in Lagos, where they argued their votes were under-counted. The affected 20 LGAs include Apapa, Lagos Island, Lagos mainland, Ikorodu, Amuwo Odofin, Ibeju lekki, Ikeja, Ifako- Ijaye, Kosofe, and Oshodi-Isolo.
Having presented its evidence from states, Peter Afuba, SAN, who is one of the counsel to the petitioner, applied that all the certified true copies of election results tendered as evidence in the court be taken as read.
Again, the counsel to the first, second, third and fourth respondents refused to give their consent, in view of their previous objections to the admissibility of the documents.
Obi and his party’s National Chairman, Julius Abure, arrived in court around 9:20 am for continuation of the hearing at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal.
At Thursday’s proceeding, the Labour Party candidate tendered results from 115 local government areas (LGAs) as part of his evidence to back his claims, but the respondents opposed the evidence tendered by the Labour Party candidate.
The LP and its candidate are challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the February 25 election.
Tinubu, 71, was declared the winner with 8,794,726 votes. His closest rival, 76-year-old former Vice President Atiku Abubakar (PDP), got 6,984,520 votes, Obi finished the race with 6,101,533.