The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of sabotaging the smooth presentation of the case he filed to challenge the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
The Waziri lamented that despite paying N6 million for the certification of exhibits he intends to tender in evidence before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja, the electoral body has refused to make the evidence available to him.
Speaking via his counsel, Eyitayo Jegede on Tuesday, Atiku persuaded Justice Haruna Tsammani-led’s five-member panel to defer further hearing on the petition he filed to nullify President Bola Tinubu’s election, till Wednesday.
Jegede, SAN, had at the resumed proceedings on the petition, sought to tender in evidence before the court, the results of the election from 10 out of 21 Local Government Areas, LGAs, in Kogi State.
Atiku’s lawyer told the court that though his client applied for electoral materials from all the LGAs in the state, however, he was only furnished with results from Ankpa, Dekina, Idah, Ofu, Olamaboro, Yagba East, Yagba West, Kabba-Bunu, Igalamela-Odolu and Kogi.
He drew the attention of the court to the fact that all the requested documents were earlier listed in the schedule of documents that Atiku and the PDP said they would rely upon to prove their joint petition against the declaration of President Tinubu of the APC as the winner of the presidential election that held on February 25.
Even though the petitioners sought to tender the exhibits available to them from Kogi state, pending the release of other documents by INEC, however, the Justice Tsammani-led panel stressed that the records of the court would not be tardy if such sensitive exhibits were admitted in evidence in piecemeal.
While requesting for an adjournment, counsel for the former Vice President told the panel that his client had subpoenaed top INEC officials to compel them to produce some of the requested electoral documents before the court.
He said the request for an adjournment was to enable his team to re-approach the Commission to urge it to do the needful.
Meanwhile, none of the respondents in the matter opposed the application for the matter to be adjourned till Wednesday.
