Tribunal documents rejection: INEC’s attitude roguish, embarrassing, a distraction — Lawyer
Says Court will still act on them
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A public interest and human rights lawyer, Barrister Inibehe Effiong, has lambasted the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC) after it rejected Certified True Copies (CTC) of its own documents, describing the attitude as roguish, embarrassing and a distraction.
Barrister Effiong made the remarks on Thursday on his twitter handle, @InibeheEffiong, after INEC openly objected to the admissibility of the said documents at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, assuring that the Court will still act on them.
Effiong said: “People should not panic over objections to admissibility of documents by INEC at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal.
“I’m not surprised by INEC’s roguish and embarrassing attitude. These are public documents duly certified. The Court will act on them. It is a distraction.”
Inibehe wondered how INEC will object to the admissibility of documents which it had certified, besides the fact that it is the maker of the Form EC8 series, which are merely polling unit and collation results.
He tweeted: “Ordinarily, INEC being the maker of the documents which they’ve certified, that is Form EC8 series (polling unit & collation results), they’re not supposed to object to their admissibility.
“I’ve always said that INEC’s neutrality is a mirage, especially in electoral litigations.”
Meanwhile, the documents have been admitted, though, according to Effiong, INEC will state the grounds for their objections in their final addresses.
“Typically, the tribunal will look into the documents and act on them. As long as the documents have been duly certified, there’s no cause for alarm.
“INEC has basically aligned their defence strategy with the other Respondents (Tinubu, APC and Shettima). They’re working in sync as they always do,” he noted.
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It could be recalled that the All Progressives Congress (APC), on Wednesday, similarly objected to the admission of documents from the Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) by the court.
INEC followed suit on Thursday, objecting to the admission of it’s own certified document in court.
Replying to Inibehe Effiong, Uchechukwu, @MahatmaNdiIgbo, expressed concerns over the safety of the submitted documents going by incidences wherein the APC presidential candidate, President Tinubu was accused of destroying evidence by setting a court on fire in a case involving Alpha Beta in Lagos.
Uchechukwu tweeted: “Please after today’s court case, where are all these documents kept? Does PO and LP have photocopies incase fire burns down the court room or unknown lawyers steal them?” Read more.
