The Plateau State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal (GEPT), had admitted series of court judgements tendered by the All Progressives Congress (APC), challenging the nomination of Governor Caleb Mutfwang, by the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), in the Match, 2023 general election.
The tribunal lead by Juatice R. Irele-ifeneh, also admitted some of the election documents tendered by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and Police officials on subpoena, just as it ordered the Chairman of INEC Prof. Mahmud Yakubu, and the Commissioner of Police Plateau State Command, to present some other documents related to the election, as requested by the APC.
The APC and its governorship candidate, Nentawe Yilwatda, are challenging the nomination of Governor Caleb Mutfwang, on the alleged ground that the PDP had no lawful structure to nominate a candidate as at the time of the election, and also there were non substantial compliance of the electoral law, amongst other allegations.
The lead Counsel to the petitioners, Kayode Olatoke SAN, raised the motion for the tendering of: State High Court judgenent nullifying the PDP structures, the judgement of the Court of Appeal, that of the Supreme Court amongst other judgment.
However, counsels to Governor Mutfwang/respondent and that of the PDP, Pius Akubo SAN and Emeka Etiaba SAN, objected to the tendering of all the judgments, but were overulled by the tribunal.
The respondents counsels said they shall adduced their reasons of objection in their final written addresses to the tribunal.Thereafter, the tribunal admitted all the judgments as tended by the petitioners.
it further admitted other documents from INEC and Police, respectively.
Aliyu, a senior system analyst from INEC ICT department, and , Festus Aisien, an assistant director, at INEC voter registry department, informed the tribunal that their appearance was in respect of the subpoena issued to INEC chairman to submit the certified true copy of Accredited data extracted from the INEC backend server and form EC8A from INEC Result Portal (IREV).
The representatives of the Chairman while presenting the documents demanded by the court, were only able to produce true certified copies of accredited data from BVAS and a part of the list of voters required from the voter register in a hardcopy while the remaining list of voters in a softcopy.
Aliyu and Festus however stated that the were not able to bring the BVAS machines to the court and the remaining parts of the voter register due to the bulky nature of the items.
In all, the tribunal had admitted 10 documents in evidence.
