Why PEPC Rejected EU Election Observers’ Report

By Ayodele Oni

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has rejected the report of the European Union, (EU) on the Presidential Election.

According to the Tribunal, the rejection was based on the grounds that they were not tendered by an official body.

The PEPC expunged from its records, a copy of the report made by the EU Election Observers Mission tendered by Peter Obi and the Labour Party (LP).

The Court held that the document was obtained by the petitioners from its registry, which was certified by its staff who is not a person with original custody of the document that was produced by the EU mission.

The actual copy of the report was earlier tendered by Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) while prosecuting their petition before the court.

The court also rejected the 18088 blurred results sheets tendered by the petitioners on the grounds that they were not tied to any polling units to which the results related, which the petitioners failed to specify in their petition.

The court held that the petitioners lied that they could not identify the polling units because the result sheets were blurred.

It noted that one of the same petitioners’ witnesses actually produced a report in which he analysed the same results, which he claimed to have sourced from INEC’s results viewing platform.

It further noted that having admitted that its agents signed for and collected copies of the result sheets, the petitioners cannot claim not to know the polling units affected, but merely chose not to specify the polling units in their petition.