Election Tribunal: Buhari, APC objects to form admitted as evidence

President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) on Friday objected to a form being tendered as evidence in the ongoing Presidential Election Tribunal.

Mr Buhari and the APC are the second and third respondents in the petition filed by Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP). The petitioners are challenging Mr Buhari’s victory at this year’s presidential election.

The court session on Friday viewed the EC8B forms for Borno, Jigawa and Gombe states. The forms consist of 352, 187 and 111 result sheets.

During the process, the second and third respondents through their lawyers, Mike Igbokwe and Charles Edosonmwa, drew the attention of the tribunal to the fact that there were attachments to the supposed form that were not from INEC.

Mr Edosonmwa said “some attachments that are not supposed to be there are on the EC8B forms and should be removed. We object to the document and attachment that comes with it.”

He referred to the attachment as “editorial attachment.”

“We shall address the court in our final addresses,” he said.

At this point, the tribunal chairman, Mohammed Garba, told the two respondents to reserve their objection and note it in their final addresses.

So far, five states, Katsina, Kebbi, Borno, Jigawa and Gombe’s result sheets have been tendered.

For Katsina and Kebbi, all the respondents objected to forms EC8A, EC8B and EC8C. They said reasons would be given in their final addresses.

But for Borno and Jigawa, the first respondent, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), second and third all objected to the admissibility of the receipt dated May 18 and July 2 for payment of Certified True Copy (CTC) document.

The second and third respondent also objected to the admissibility of form EC8C from Gombe State,INEC through its lawyer, Yunus Usman did not object , saying that “the forms are clear ones.”