The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has given reasons it objected documents as exhibits by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP,) Mr. Peter Gregory Obi.
INEC has been opposing documents sought to be tendered as evidence to establish Petitioners case against the election of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
At the resumed proceeding, Friday, INEC, through it’s counsel, Kemi Pinhero SAN, told the Court that the electoral body kicked against the tendering of certified true copies of the documents for election result sheets because Obi and the Labour Party did not challenge the conduct of election in the areas relating to the documents.
The electoral empire posited that issues were not joined in the Local Government Areas where the result sheets were sought to be tendered, adding that it was wrong of the petitioners to go beyond the areas where the election is disputed.
Specifically, INEC said Petitioners are trying to confuse issues by bringing result sheets where he did not dispute the election and the returns adding that the presidential candidate ought to have guided himself with the pleadings in his petition.
It maintained that the local government areas’s documents presented in the proceedings are totally strange to the petition and cannot stand in the face of the law.
Reacting, Justice Haruna Tsammani held that it was wrong of INEC to bring in the explanation into the proceedings because all parties in the petition have agreed to offer such explanations at the address stage of proceedings.
INEC explains that he was forced to speak up on the objections because of the social media bash client it’s client suffered.
Pinhero informed that the social media owners had turned his client to object of ridicule without finding out reasons for objections against the admissibility of the documents.
Earlier, hearing in the petition of the Allied People’s Movement (APM) was further shifted to June 9, to enable lawyers obtain the May 26 judgment of the Supreme Court that would determine whether the petition still has life to sustain it or not.
