2019 poll: APC asks Supreme Court to expunge Atiku’s experts’ reports

In a swift move against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in the February 23 presidential election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, the All Progressives Congress (APC) has asked the Supreme Court to expunge Atiku’s experts’ reports and evidence from the record  at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on 2019 presidential election.

APC filed a cross-appeal at the apex court against the admission of the report and evidence of the three data analysts who testified for the petitioners at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal and whose evidence was admitted by the tribunal in the interest of natural justice.

The party, in the cross-appeal filed by its lead counsel, Prince Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), wants the Supreme Court to expunge the evidence of the three Information Communication and Technology (ICT) experts who testified on the existence of server allegedly used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to store results of the February 23 presidential election.

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The three key witnesses are Segun Sowunmi, a Media Aide to Atiku, David Njoga, a Kenyan and Joseph Gbenga who are famous data analysts employed by Atiku to carry out forensic analysis of the presidential election results.

They had, in their testimony informed the tribunal that they analysed presidential election results state by state and found discrepancies in the results credited to Atiku and President Muhammadu Buhari.

Specifically, the three data analysts alleged that in the results sheets they analysed, the votes of Atiku were deliberately depleted while that of Buhari and APC were inflated.

The Kenyan expert, in his evidence specifically insisted that INEC used the server which he claimed to have penetrated to obtain the alleged authentic results of the February 23 presidential election which ran contrary to the one declared by the electoral body.

But, Fagbemi in the cross-appeal pleaded with the Supreme Court for an order setting aside the evidence of the three witnesses and the documents, including video clips tendered through them from the bar.

Fagbemi also wants the apex court to outrightly expunge their testimonies and documents from the record of the court for being inadmissible in law.

The APC argued that the tribunal erred in law when it held that the evidence and the documents of the three witnesses were considered in the interest of natural justice.

Fagbemi submitted that the decision of the tribunal on the point was untenable on the grounds that the issue of admissibility or otherwise of a document is a point of law and not natural justice as erroneously held by the tribunal.

The SAN also sought the order of the apex court to strike out Atiku’s allegations of electoral malpractices in 10 states of the federation on the grounds that the allegations of the electoral fraud were vague and not specific as required by law.

The counsel said that the petitioners did not state the specific polling units where the alleged fraud was committed, hence they must be expunged for lacking in merit.

Atiku had on September 23, 2019, filed a 66-ground of appeal praying the apex court to set aside the whole decision of the presidential election petition tribunal which upheld the declaration of Buhari as the winner of the February 23 presidential election.

The PDP’s presidential candidate specifically faulted the decision of the Justice Mohammed Garba led panel which held that Buhari did not need to attach his academic certificates to the INEC’s form CF 001 before he can stand for the presidential election.

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the appeals.