There was mild drama in court on Thursday as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) tendered before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) personal information supplied by President Bola Tinubu in the buildup to the 2023 polls.
The electoral umpire presented the form EC9, which contains the President’s biodata pursuant to the subpoena issued on INEC Chairman, Yakubu Mahmoud, by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, challenging the declaration of Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the February 25 presidential poll.
Politics Nigeria reported that the PDP had on Tuesday, June 13, disclosed that it subpoenaed the INEC chairman to appear before the court on Thursday in order to produce some requested documents necessary to prove their claim that Tinubu’s election should not stand.
Upon return of the hearing, PDP lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN), informed the court that the INEC chair, through a Deputy Director of the commission, M.O Tairu, had brought some of the required documents pursuant to the subpoena.
Following the notification of the court, Tairu tendered form EC8D, which is a series of results for the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory.
The Certified True Copies of the accredited documents from the 36 states and the FCT were produced and presented in both soft and hard copies.
Tairu also tendered from EC8DA, which is the final declaration of the results.
She presented before the court, accredited data from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) with respect to Rivers State.
All the respondents objected to the admissibility of the documents as counsel for INEC, A.B. Mahmoud, asserted that the petitioners were yet to pay for the certification of the documents tendered.
However, Uche countered the statement, saying the sum of N6.7m “has been paid to the first respondent” arguing that the documents were produced upon the orders of the court.
The five-man panel of the court headed by Justice Tsammani admitted the documents in evidence and marked them as exhibits.
The court subsequently adjourned further hearing in the petition to June 16.
