Izuchukwu E.N
The Presidential Tribunal headed by Justice Mohammed Garba, have been asked to expunge 28,000 result sheets of the 2019 Presidential election in 10 states tendered by the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and also reject testimonies of his 40th, 59th and 60th witnesses.
Mr Segun Showunmi was Atiku’s 40th witness; David Njorga from Kenya, who was described by the petitioners as their “expert witness” was the PW 59; Joseph Gbenga, a data analyst was the PW 60.
The Tribunal was also asked to reject 33 documents which include Certified True Copies of Form CF001 (personal particulars) submitted by Buhari to the Independent National Electoral Commission as the presidential candidate of his party, other INEC documents and some newspaper reports.
The true copies of polling unit, local government, ward and state result sheets challenged by President Buhari and the APC are from Yobe (1,732 result sheets), Kebbi (2,106), Borno (3,472), Kano (5,806), Bauchi (3,599), Katsina (3,378), Jigawa (3,162), Kaduna (3,335A), Zamfara (eight) and Niger (1,797).
President Buhari and the APC also urged the tribunal to dismiss Atiku’s petition against Buhari for lacking in merit ahead of August 21, which is the expected day for parties to present their closing arguments.
Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), APC’s lawyer held that the documents should be expunged from the Tribunal’s proceedings because they were “wrongly admitted in evidence”, “legally inadmissible” and “are documentary hearsay evidence that should not have been admitted by the honourable court in the first place”.
President Buhari’s lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun also argued that the testimonies of witnesses numbers 40, 59 and 60 were in violation of the March 6, 2019 order of the tribunal, which denied Atiku access to an alleged server in which they claimed INEC stored the authentic results of the last presidential election.
Punch reported that while Showunmi (PW40) tendered some video evidence to prove Atiku’s case of the existence of the server, Njorga (PW 59) gave evidence and tendered his report on the existence of the said server, Gbenga (PW 60) on the other hand gave evidence and tendered his report of the analysis of the results of the election in 11 states.
