The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) suspended proceedings on Monday for lawyer to President Muhammadu Buhari to provide equipment needed to play a digital video disc (DVD)) said a clip where the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC), Prof Mahmoud Yakubu ruled out the adoption of electronic transmission of results of the last general elections.
The five-member tribunal, led by Justice Mohammed Garba adjourned till Tuesday, shortly after Buhari’s lawyer, Alex Izinyon (SAN) sought to be allowed to bring equipment to play the DVD after lawyer to Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Chris Uche (SAN) objected to the use of their television set and DVD player for the disc the second respondent’s lawyer sought to play.
Monday was the eighth of the 10 days allocated to Atiku and the PDP, who are, by their petition,n challenging the outcome of the last presidential election won by President Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Atiku and his party claimed, in their petition, to have won the last presidential election, going by results they got from a purported INEC server.
In all, the petitioners, who proposed to call about 400 witnesses, have so far, called 40, having called four on Monday.
After calling their third witness on Monday, Uche indicated the petitioners’ intention to tender video evidence contained in about 48 compact discs and to play some in open court.
The petitioners proceeded to call its fourth witness for the day, Segun Showunmi, through whom they tendered the CDs and a certificate of compliance. Showunmi introduced himself as the Media Adviser to Atiku.
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Although lawyers to the respondents – Yunus Usman (SAN), for INEC; Izinyon, and Adeniyi Akintola (SANN), for the APC objected to the admission of the CD in evidence, the tribunal, in a ruling, overruled the respondents’ objection.
Justice Garba said the CDs were part of exhibits covered by the pre-election agreement by parties, which the tribunal adopted.
Upon the ruling, Uche applied that some of the videos be played, following which three of the CDs were played.
The first was a recording of a television programme – “Sunday Politics” – which featured an interview with an INEC official, identified as Mike Igini.
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