Atiku tenders over 26,000 exhibits against Buhari at tribunal

Atiku Abubakar, presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and his party have tendered a total of 26,175 exhibits against the election of President Muhammadu Buhari at the presidential election tribunal.

The PDP candidate had through Livy Uzoukwu, his lawyer, tendered 5,196 exhibits before the tribunal on Thursday while additional ones were filed on Friday.

Atiku had gone to the tribunal to challenge Buhari’s victory at the February poll.

He is arguing that results from the individual polling units shows he got more votes than Buhari who contested under the All Progressives Congress (APC).

A statement from Paul Ibe, his spokesman, said the exhibits comprise mainly result sheets from polling units, wards and local governments in eight states namely Katsina, Kebbi, Borno, Jigawa, Gombe, Bauchi, Kaduna and partly Kano.

Ibe gave the breakdown of the documents as: 3,378 came from Katsina; 2,106 came from Kebbi; 3,472 from Borno; 3,162 from Jigawa; 1,912 from Gombe; 3,539 from Bauchi; 3,335 from Kaduna and 5,271 came from Kano.

Yunus Usman, counsel to INEC; Mike Igbokwe, counsel to Buhari; and Charles Edosomwan, APC counsel, were all said to have objected to the admissibility of the documents.

They were, however, said to have informed the tribunal that reasons for their objections would be made at the address stage of hearing in the petition.

Uzoukwu told the tribunal that his team will begin to call witnesses after the documents have all been tendered.

The tribunal adjourned till Monday, July 8, for further hearing.