Court of Appeal provides ‘rare’ update on Labour Party, Obi proceedings at PEPT
Court of Appeal in Abuja has confirmed that the Labour Party and its candidate, Peter Obi have tendered exhibits including certified true copies (CTCs) of election results from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the prosecution of their petition at the ongoing Presidential Elections Petitions Tribunal.
The PEPT sits at the Court of Appeal headquarters in Abuja.
The court in a rare update posted via its Twitter handle (@NGCourtofAppeal), Saturday, disclosed that the LP/Obi legal team has tendered INEC-signed Certified True Copies (CTC) of election results from six more states in the country, in addition to those from six local government areas in Rivers and one from Niger State before the court, during Friday’s proceedings.
The evidence were in addition to the documents from six states earlier tendered by the LP/Obi legal team challenging INEC’s declaration of the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu, as winner of the February 25 election.
“PREPEC 2023: Labour Party and its candidate, Peter Obi has tendered as evidence, Exhibits of Certified True Copies from INEC by tendering additional Local government from Thursday’s exhibits which were 6 additional Local government from Rivers and one from Niger.
“The states admitted in evidence by the Petitioners Counsel were: Adamawa 21 Local governments, Bayelsa 8, Oyo 31, Edo 18, Lagos 20 & Akwa Ibom 31.
“Admissibility to the exhibits were objected to by all the Respondents stating they will advance their arguments in their addresses,” the appellant court update read.
Earlier Thursday, the Appeal Court also confirmed that the PEPT received evidence of electoral materials from 6 states by the Labour Party and Mr. Peter Obi.
According to the Appeal Court, counsel to the petitioners (LP and Obi), informed that they are only interested in the election results from 18 states in the country.
“Amongst the 6 states electoral results tendered to the panel as evidence for the day were River State with 15 Local government, Benue 23, Niger State 23, Osun 20, Cross River 18 and Ekiti 16.
“Responding to all the evidence tendered. Counsels to the 1st (INEC), 2nd (Bola Tinubu), 3rd (Kashim Shettima) and 4th (APC) respondents objected to the admissibility of the documents stating that they would be responding to the objections in their written addresses in due time.”
However, according to LP/Obi counsels, INEC has continued to refuse its requests for the CTCs of results from Obi-Akpor and Port Harcourt City councils, despite order from Justice Haruna Tsammani, Chairman of the PEPT.
