At the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja, Eyitayo Jegede, the lawyer representing Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of obstructing their access to crucial electoral documents, despite payment of N6 million for their certification.
According to reports from Punch Newspaper, Jegede made these assertions on Tuesday, June 6, during the court proceedings as the former Vice President of Nigeria seeks to reclaim his alleged stolen mandate at the Feb. 25th 2023 Presidential Election.
Jegede expressed frustration over INEC’ s refusal to provide the requested electoral documents, stating that it has hindered their ability to present evidence in Atiku’ s case against President Bola Tinubu. As a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Jegede intended to submit result sheets from 10 Local Government Areas in Kogi State, specifically Ankpa, Dekina, Idah, Ofu, Olamaboro, Yagba East, Yagba West, Kabba- Bunu, and Igalamela Odolu.
However, the five- member court panel chaired by Haruna Tsammani rejected Jegede’ s attempt to present these result sheets individually, stating that it would be inappropriate to introduce such sensitive documents piece by piece. Tsammani explained that marking and numbering the documents as exhibits would pose difficulties in such a manner.
In defense of his case, Jegede claimed that INEC had refused to provide the documents in their entirety to Atiku’ s legal team. According to him, despite Atiku’ s payment of N6 million for the certified copies of the electoral documents, INEC allegedly failed to make the election records available. As a result, Jegede stated that they had no choice but to issue a subpoena to compel INEC officials to produce the required documents in court.
Jegede requested a 24- hour adjournment to allow for further efforts in obtaining the necessary documents from INEC.
