Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, on Friday, admitted all documentary evidence tendered by the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Dr. Asue Ighodalo in support of his petition challenging the declaration of Senator Monday Okpebholo by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as Governor.
At the resumed hearing of Ighodalo’s petition, the court admitted all 1,004 documentary evidence tendered by the petitioners, in spite of the objections raised by counsels to the respondents – INEC and Okpebholo.
The documentary evidence admitted included the Certified True Copies (CTC) of INEC declaration of results forms EC8A-E and Local Government Areas’ summary of results used for the conduct of the 21 September 2024 election.
Moving the application for the admission of the evidence, lead counsel to the petitioner, Ken Mozia, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) said that the verification of the over 1,004 documents have been duly done in the presence of the lawyers of the parties and the Registrar, and therefore tendered them accordingly.
In their reaction, counsels to the first, second and third respondents, Chief Kanu Agabi (SAN), Onyechi Ikpeazu and VC Dewigwe objected to the tendering of the documents. But the court admitted the evidence in favour of the petitioners.
With this development, the coast is now clear for the petitioners to proceed to lead oral evidence in support of their case.
