Tribunal admits statisticians’ reports in Atiku’s petition

The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) on Wednesday admitted in evidence statistics reports of inspectors of the election.

In a petition marked CA/PEPC/05/2023, Atiku Abubakar and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) are challenging the outcome of the Feb.25 presidential election which brought Tinubu as the winner.

The respondents are Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The petitioners’s 21st witness (PW21) Samuel Oduntan is a statistician and a subpoenaed witness.

He adopted his statement on oath which was objected by all the respondents when led in evidence by Eyitayo Jegede, SAN who represented Abubakar and the PDP.

Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN represented INEC, Wole Olanipakun, SAN represented Tinubu and Lateef Fagbemi, SAN represented APC.

The respondents’ counsel objected to the tendering of the statistician ‘s report from the inspection of the election, alongside the three appendages.

INEC reserved their position on the demonstration of the content of the documents.

Olujimi and Fagbemi told the court that their are not giving any consent because they objected to the admissibility of the documents

They added that the petitioners never mentioned that the documents would be demonstrated.

Mahmoud however, prayed the court to provide them with the soft copy of the flash drive of the documents.

In response, Jegede asked for INEC to provide them with the voters ‘ register and the court also asked for it too.

Earlier, Jegede told the court that the evidence in chief of the witness be taken today while the cross examination would be tomorrow.

All the respondents ‘counsel confirmed that they all met and agreed on that.

Meanwhile, the five-member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned until Thursday for cross examination of the witness and further hearing of the petition.

NAN/N.O