President Bola Tinubu and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) have opposed the tendering in evidence, of information that were extracted from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines that were used for the conduct of the 2023 presidential election.
Tinubu, through his team of lawyers led by Wole Olanipekun, SAN, challenged the admissibility of certified copies of printouts from the BVAS, which were brought before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, by candidate of the opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar.
Atiku, at the resumed proceedings on the petition he filed to challenge the outcome of the presidential election that held on February 25, maintained that the evidence he sought to tender, was in respect of 33 states of the federation, excluding Kaduna, Kano, Katsina and Lagos state.
Though Atiku’s legal team was led by Chris Uche, SAN, however, the documents were tendered from the Bar by a member of the team, Prof. Eyitayo Jegede, SAN.
While the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, said it was also opposed to the admissibility of the documents, except for printout of data from BVAS it deployed to three states- Kogi, Sokoto and Rivers, on its part, the APC, which was cited as the 4th respondent in the matter, threw its weight behind its candidate, Tinubu.
Meanwhile, Jegede, SAN, told the court that the documents he tendered, were duly certified by INEC after all the necessary fees were paid.
Despite the objections, the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel, went ahead and admitted the documents from the BVAS into evidence and marked them as Exhibits PT 1 to PT 33.
Also, INEC’s team of lawyers led by Mr. Kemi Pinhero, SAN, opposed the admissibility of the downloaded election results.
Likewise, counsel that handled the session for President Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima, Mr. Emmanuel Ukala, SAN, as well as the lawyer for the APC, Niyi Akintola, SAN, equally raised objections against the tendering of the results in evidence.
The Justice Tsammani-led panel admitted results of the presidential election from Abia state and marked them as Exhibits PJ, PJ1- PJ 16, even as it also marked their certification receipt as Exhibit PJ-17.
In a brief ruling, Justice Tsammani acceded to the application and adjourned the petition till Thursday.
It will be recalled that Obi and the LP had indicated their decision to call a total of 50 witnesses in the matter.
