TheCable

Witnesses of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) gave testimonies and the party played video evidence at the presidential election petition tribunal on Tuesday.

Here are five takeaways from the session.

ATIKU SUBPOENAS INEC CHAIR, SECRETARY

Chris Uche, counsel to Atiku Abubakar and the PDP, told the tribunal that he had subpoenaed Mahmood Yakubu, chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to appear before the court to testify.

Uche said the INEC chairman would tender some sensitive documents during his appearance.

Omoa Oriaran-Anthony, secretary of the electoral commission, was also subpoenaed.

WITNESS TENDERS VIDEO EVIDENCE, SCREENSHOTS OF IReV

The PDP presented a star witness; Alex Ter, former attorney-general of Benue state. Ter told the court that he served as the coordinator of the national situation room of the PDP during the February 25 presidential election.

The witness tendered videos and screenshots of results from the IReV portal to the court.

Subsequently, the court admitted the multimedia exhibits as evidence.

PLAYING OF VIDEO EVIDENCE

The petitioners played the three video clips tendered by the witness at the proceedings.

The videos contained interviews with the INEC chairman and Festus Okoye, INEC national commissioner, giving assurances on the functionality of the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) in the 2023 elections.

There was also a video of the European Union (EU) election observer mission.

PDP PRESENTS RETIRED NAVAL OFFICER AS WITNESS

The petitioners also presented Olatunji Shelle, a retired naval officer, as its 20th witness to testify before the tribunal.

Shelle told the court that during the February 25 election, thugs attacked voters in Lagos state.

During cross-examination, Abubakar Mahmoud, counsel to INEC, asked the witness the number of polling units he visited on election day.

Responding, Shelle said he visited about 40 polling units in Lagos.

Asked for his reaction when he saw thugs attacking voters, he said: “I didn’t do anything because I was not in charge of security.”

OBI TENDERS DOCUMENTS

Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP) sought to tender Forms EC40G for five states.

The states are Niger (10 LGAs), Oyo (7 LGAs), Osun (8 LGAs), Edo (3 LGAs), and Sokoto (4 LGAs).

The petitioners had also tendered IReV reports from five states during Tuesday’s proceedings.

Lawyers of the respondents — INEC, President Bola Tinubu, Vice-President Kashim Shettima and the All Progressives Congress (APC) — objected to the admissibility of the documents and said they would reserve their objections until the final address.

The five-member panel of the court led by Haruna Tsammani admitted the documents as exhibits.

The presidential election petition tribunal was adjourned to June 14.