PEPC: Atiku, PDP tender sensitive electoral documents produced by INEC boss

The Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar and his party on Thursday tendered some sensitive electoral documents obtained from the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who was subpoenaed to appear before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja to produce the documents in aid of their joint petition against Tinubu’s election.

Although, the INEC boss was not in court in person but was represented by the Deputy Director, certification and complaint, legal drafting and clearance department of INEC, Morenikeji Tahiru, who produced the documents that were tendered in evidence by the lead counsel to the Petitioners, Chief Chris Uche (SAN).

Tahiru said he was in court in respect of the subpoena issued on the INEC chairman to produce some sensitive electoral documents used in the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.

She however produced only four out of the 11 documents listed in the subpoena to the INEC boss.

The documents that she made available and were admitted by the court as exhibits are form EC8D series and EC8A.

Form EC8D series are the presidential election results from all 36 states and the FCT while EC8DA is the final result of the election.

Tahiru also submitted the certified true copy (CTC) of the Biomodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) report in Rivers state as well as the accreditation data from BVAS machines used across all states of the federation and the FCT.

The INEC director also produced form EC9 which contained personal data of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and was also tendered in evidence by the Counsel to the petitioners and was admitted by the court.

INEC”s lead counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) objected to the admissibility of documents, saying that some of the documents are not relevant and payments have not been made for the certification of the documents.

Counsel to Atiku and PDP, Uche, while praying the court to discountenance the objections of the respondents said, the petitioners paid the sum of 6.7 million to get the documents certified by the electoral body.

Counsel to Tinubu and that of the APC, Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN) and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) respectively also opposed the admissibility of the documents and said they will give their reasons at the final address stage.

The respondents also told the court that they will give their consent to the application that the documents be taken as been read.

The five members of Justices of the court headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani however admitted the documents and marked them as exhibits despite the objections by the respondents and adjourned further hearing till Friday, June 26.