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The video recordings that allegedly depicted how the February 23 presidential election was manipulated in favour of President Muhammadu Buhari has been accepted, on Monday by the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
The five-member panel tribunal, led by Justice Mohammed Garba, admitted the 48 Video Compact Disc, VCDs, into evidence, after it dismissed objections that were raised by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, and President Buhari, the All Progressives Congress, APC, who are respondents to the petition that was lodged by the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar
The drama was doused when Justice Garba reminded the respondents that all the parties had agreed during the pre-hearing stage of the petition to only indicate their objection to any evidence sought to be tendered, and reserve their reasons for the written address.
Esarlie, the tribunal held that all the parties were bound by the agreement and could not renege or deliberately deviate from any of the terms.
Justice Garba further noted that in the pre-hearing agreement, no particular or specific document was excluded from being tendered from the Bar.
In his words: “The document now tendered from the Bar is clearly within the terms of agreement adopted by parties”.
Consequently, the tribunal admitted the video evidence and marked them as exhibits P-36 to P-83.
It also admitted Certificate of Compliance with respect to the videos as exhibit P-37.
The respondents had opposed the admissibility of the exhibts they said was not frontloaded by the petitioners.
They contended that the exhibits were in breach of Paragraph 4(6c) and 41(2) of the 1st Schedule to the Electoral Act.
The petitioners, Atiku Abubakar and Peoples Democratic Party, through their lawyer, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, applied for the videos to be played.
Rwgards to that a big screen was earlier mounted inside the court to enable the Justices to watch the videos as required.
