•Obi tenders final results of presidential poll

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC), yesterday, appeared rattled as the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP’s) candidate in the disputed February 25 presidential election called its first subpoenaed witness at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PREPEC).

INEC, Tinubu and APC through their individual lawyers objected to the taking of the evidence of the witness, who is said to be an ad hoc staff of INEC.

At the proceedings, lead counsel to the PDP, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, after the admittance of exhibits from 10 local governments in Kogi State, called in one of its listed witnesses, who gave evidence on how INEC failed to transmit results real time “as promised”.

Shortly after the end of cross examination of the witness, Hon. Ndubuisi Nwobu, from Anambra State, Uche informed the court that the petitioners had three subpoenaed witnesses and went to call the first one, an ad hoc staff of INEC.

Immediately the witness entered the witness box and barely before he could take his oath, counsel to INEC, Mr Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, rose in objection to the hearing of the evidence of the witness.

He informed the court that he was only served this morning with the statement of the witness and as such would have to study the statement in order to do a thorough cross-examination.

His position was shared by Tinubu’s lawyer, Chief Akin Olujimi, SAN and APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, who added that he was only served barely 20 minutes ago with the statement and had not seen what it contained.

Responding, Uche argued that with a subpoenaed witness, they were not supposed to front-load his statement to the respondents, adding that there was nothing strange in the statement of the witness to warrant an adjournment.

Uche pleaded with the court to take at least one of the subpoenaed witnesses so as to judiciously make use of the time allotted it because the adjournment would eat into their allotted time.

Chairman of the PREPEC, Justice Haruna Tsammani, while trying to be considerate, proposed standing down trial for 30 minutes to enable respondents look at the documents and thereby cross-examine the first subpoenaed witness.

But INEC insisted that the witness could not be taken today because the witness “is said to be an ad hoc staff of the Commission” and as such, he would have to go and look at INEC’s records to enable him prepare adequately.

Following the respondents insistence, Uche urged the court to adjourned till tomorrow for the calling of the three subpoenaed witnesses.

Earlier, in his evidence, Nwobu told the PREPEC that election went smoothly in most polling units he visited including where he cast his vote but “magic started happening” at the ward collation centers.

According to him, results of the election were entered into the forms EC8A at the polling units but were not transmitted real time into the IReV because of the failure of the BVAS machines.

He told the panel that but for his intervention some staff of INEC would have been attacked due to their inability to upload results real time.

“There was no real time transmission of results as we were promised by INEC,” he said.

Meanwhile, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) Mr Peter Obi, yesterday, tendered Form EC8D (A) being the final results of the February 25 presidential election upon which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Tinubu President.

The document, although not objected to by INEC, Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as in previous instances, was admitted as exhibit by the five member panel of the PREPEC.

The final results contained the results of the presidential election from the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory ( FCT).

Since the beginning of the second week of hearing, Obi and his party had been tendering various documents to prove their allegations of rigging and other corrupt practices that allegedly robbed them of victory at the presidential election.

Before yesterday June 7, the petitioners had tendered documents ranging from Form EC8As and EC8Bs, which comprised results from polling units and wards level, from states wherein they were in dispute with the outcome of the poll.

At yesterday’s proceedings, lawyer to the petitioners, Prof Paul Ananaba, SAN, before tendering the national results, tendered Form EC8Cs, which were collated results at the Local Government Areas level and as were in earlier cases; INEC, Tinubu and APC through their individual lawyers objected to the tendering of the said documents reserving their reasons till their final written address.

Speaking with journalists shortly after the close of proceedings, Ananaba said the petitioners still had some remaining documents to tender in support of their petition before calling addition witnesses.

At the commencement of hearing last week, Obi and LP, had called their first and only witness so far in the matter, to attest to the allegation that Tinubu forfeited the sum of $460,000 to the United States of America over drug-related offences.

Hearing continues today.