…AS ARISE NEWS TELEVISION WITNESSED AGAINST INEC BOSS
Presidential election Court sitting in FCT Abuja, on Thursday accepted a 18,088 blurred polling unit results from IREV, of the Independent National Electoral Commission, tendered in evidence by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party and it’s presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi
The witness identified one of the boxes containing 18,088 blurred polling unit results from IREV.
According to the witness, he needs to make some changes to his witness statement and the respondents said he had to go back and re-swear at the court for the statement to be updated.
Onyechi Ikpeazu argues that it’s a minor correction that doesn’t require swearing an oath.
The LP and Obi are in court over the outcome of the election which the INEC had declared Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress was declared as the elected president.
At the resumed hearing the counsel for the petitioners, Onyechi Ikpeazu (SAN), led the proceedings on behalf of the LP and Obi.
Ikpeazu told the court that he intended to call to the witness box a professor of Mathematics, Eric Ofoedu, to testify before the court.
Obi hired the witness before the election by the 2nd petitioner, LP to carry out an analysis of the data from the February 25 election.
Admitted also in evidence were the letter addressed to Ofoedu seeking his service and the subpoena served on him to appear before the court.
However, the respondents in the suit, the Independent INEC, Tinubu, his vice-president, Kashim Shettima, and the APC, opposed the admissibility of the documents.
The APC counsel, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), opposed the admissibility of the subpoena served on the witness but gave his consent to the court to admit the letter of engagement.
According to them, their objections would be mentioned at the later stage of the petition.
After the witness was led in evidence by Ikpeazu SAN, the witness, professor of mathematics tendered before the court, report of data analysis of the election, INEC Results Viewing scores investigation, separate data analysis of results in Rivers and Benue states.
The court admitted and marked the documents as exhibits PCG1 – PVG3 respectively, the court also admitted in evidence blurred polling units results from IReV in 18,088 polling units across the country.
The witness was not cross-examined by the respondents as
The five-man panel of the court chaired by Justice Tsammani in a brief ruling moved the cross-examination of the witness till June 16, following the objections by the respondents that they were just served the witness statement a few minutes before the sitting.
The LP, and Obi, also summoned Arise News Television to appear before the court in aid of their petition against Tinubu.
The witness was led in evidence by counsel to the petitioners, Patrick Ikweato SAN.
The TV station through a member of staff Lumnie Edevbie tendered in evidence a copy of a flash drive which contained a video clip showing INEC’s chairman, Yakubu Mahmoud giving a speech at Chatham’s house, in London on January 17.
Mahmoud in the video clip, made a case for the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and the IRev as the commission’s biggest archive and repository of the results of the election.
But the respondents opposed the admissibility of the clip but the court admitted it and marked it as one of the exhibits in the petition.
At the end of their allotted time, the court adjourned till June 16, for the continuation of the hearing in the petition by LP and Obi.
