On Saturday, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) watched the first video evidence that had been brought in front of them by Mr. Peter Obi and his party, the Labour Party.
Petitioners Obi and his Labour Party (LP) are challenging the results of the election that brought Bola Tinubu to power as president. Their petition bears the number CA/PEPC/03/2023.
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) are the ones who have responded to the allegations.
The two videos were played in front of the judge on Saturday morning, when the court resumed its hearing of the petition.
The court had earlier agreed that the flash drive containing the videos could be used as evidence.
The ChannelsTV station was served with two subpoenas on May 30 and June 6, which led to the production of the two videos.
The videos contained interviews with Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of INEC, on the subject of the organization’s preparations for the election.
The second one was that of Festus Okoye, who is a National Commissioner for INEC and also the Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee.
Mr. Lucky Obowo-Isawode, a staff member at Channels TV, was called as a witness and subpoenaed to provide the videos.
Everyone who participated in the petition voiced opposition to the videos, but they chose to save their full responses for the written addresses they submitted.
Evidence in the form of EC40GEU was submitted by the petitioners on their behalf by their attorney, Jubrin Okitepa. The evidence came from six different local government areas in the state of Benue.
In addition to this, they submitted form EC40OG(1) from one community in Benue, as well as a copy of the form that was certified by INEC as being an accurate representation of the original.
The court made its ruling and accepted all of the evidence.
All of the counsel for the respondents voiced their opposition to it, but they saved their responses for their concluding written addresses.
In the meantime, the five-person bench presided over by Justice Haruna Tsammani postponed further consideration of the petition until the following Tuesday.
