Like his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, the Candidate of the Labour Party, (LP0, and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, on Thursday, produced certified copies of results of the February 25 presidential election from six states of the federation before the tribunal to support his claim.
Obi and his labour party, as well as Atiku Abubakar and his opposition PDP have at separate petitions, challenged the declaration of president Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as winner of the presidential election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
The results, which Obi and his party tendered in before the tribunal were obtained from 115 Local Government Areas, LGAs, and six states
The election results, which were contained in Forms EC8A, were tendered from the Bar by one of Obiu’s counsel, Chief Emeka Opoko, SAN.
The documents were however objected by the counsels to both the All Progressives Congress (APC), INEC and Tinubu
The tendered evidence of election results which was tendered before the court by the LP candidate came from 15 out of 22 LGAs of Rivers State.
Despite opposition by all the respondents in the matter, Justice Haruna Tsammani-led’s five-member panel admitted the Rivers state results and marked them as Exhibits PD 1 to PD 15.
Obi and the LP equally tendered results from 23 LGAs in Benue state, which were also admitted in evidence and marked as Exhibits PC 1 to PC 23, while results from 18 LGAs in Cross River State were added in evidence as Exhibits PD1 – PD 18.
Obi also tendered Forms EC8A from 23 LGAs from Niger state and they were admitted in evidence as Exhibits PE-1 to PE 23, as well as that of 20 LGAs in Osun state which were marked as Exhibits PF 1 – PF 20.
Also tendered by the petitioner as evidence before the tribunal were Form EC8A and results from 16 LGAs in Ekiti and they were admitted and marked as Exhibits PG 1 to PG 16, despite protest by the lawyers to APC, INEC and Tinubu, before the Justice Tsammani-led five man panel subsequently adjourned further proceedings in the matter till Friday.
Whilre rejecting the admittance of the documents by the tribunal the respondents said they would give reasons why they challenged the presidential election results that Obi and the LP tendered in evidence, in their final written address.
It will be recalled that Obi and the LP had indicated their decision to call a total of 50 witnesses in the matter.
Meanwhile, both Obi and his Vice Presidential candidate, Baba Ahmed Datti, were in court on Thursday to observe the proceeding.