Lawyers representing President Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima have urged the Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja to increase their client’s votes from 8,794,726 declared by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission Mahmood Yakubu, to 8,800,369 votes.
Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun SAN, told the PEPC to uphold the testimony of its star witness, Senator Michael Opeyemi, who told the court that in Kano State, the votes secured by Tinubu were not properly recorded and had a shortfall of 10,929 votes.
Recall that on March 1, INEC’s Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu announced Tinubu as winner of the polls with 8,794,726 votes while Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Labour Party were said to have scored 6,984,520 votes and 6,101,533 votes, respectively.
But the first and second runners-up as declared by INEC, filed separate petitions asking the PEPC to nullify Tinubu’s election victory.
During his defence of Tinubu’s victory however, Olanipekun tendered INEC certified national election result sheet and Kano state presidential result sheet as evidence.
In their final written address, Olanipekun told the court that Tinubu’s actual score in Kano state was not reflected in the final results declared by the INEC chairman.
He urged the court to declare that it was an arithmetic error and order that 10,929 votes be added to Tinubu’s score.
“In paragraph 83 of the respondent’s reply, it has been pleaded that the votes scored by him in
Kano State was discounted by 10,929; Exhibits RA20 and RA21 were tendered before this
Honourable Court and the sole witness called by the respondents was made to speak to them,
identifying the figures relevant to the pleading as appearing in column 9 of each of the exhibits,
that is, the votes recorded in RA20(Form EC&D) was discounted by 10,929 in Exhibit RA21
(Form EC8D(A).
“It was a mere arithmetical error which is apparent on the two exhibits. Thus, the court has the power and jurisdiction to add the discounted figure of 10,929 to the final votes of 8,794,726, recorded for the respondent, to make his votes come to a total of 8,800,369, in conformity with Exhibits RA20 and RA21. We urge the court to so hold,” Olanipekun prayed separately in his address to Obi petition.
He also brought same submissions in the petition by filed Atiku, having tendered the result sheet for Kano and the national election.
Furthermore, Olanipekun asked the court not to consider Obi’s evidence because his star witness, the chief spokesman of the LP Presidential Campaign Council and National Director, Media, Labour party, Yunusa Tanko, allegedly “dumped” it on the court without demonstrating it.
“This witness also admitted that he did not open the various envelopes dumped on the court, because there was no time, and as such, he only opened some.
” Accordingly, we respectfully urge this Honourable Court to take note of the fact that the petitioners only succeeded in dumping their documents before this Honourable Court, without the requisite demonstration and linkage with the relevant portion of the case.
“We urge the court to observe that this petition(by Obi) has been prosecuted without the relevant documents, in respect of which the court could have taken a decision in their favour,” Olanipekun prayed.
The learned silk equally asked the PEPC to declare that the reports tendered by experts and a statistician in Obi and Atiku’s case were premeditated and not truthful.