The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Plateau State has been ordered and compiled by the National/State Houses of Assembly Election Tribunal to appear with three documents containing the Gagdi ward results for the 18th March 2023 cancelled polling units results.
On a request made to the trial tribunal to produce the Prof. Daniel Davou Dabi results of ambiguous polling units from the Kanam Local Government Council of Plateau state, Honourable Justice Bello Muhammed Tukur gave the ordered best.
The petitioners expressed concern that the returning officer failed to declare the winner due to many issues with voting process mutilation and irregularities.
The election umpire was on subpoena to present the following documents of P23 items 1, 4, and 7 as exhibits P23, but did not do so. As a result, the Chairman of the Trial Tribunal earlier directed INEC and the petitioners to go to INEC’s headquarters in search of the missing documents.
The documents available and designated as exhibits P8c, and P8d were tendered through Pw1, but the forms EC8A1 and EC8G where the first respondent’s, INEC, such as documents.
According to the tribunal chairman, there are documents which were the declaration of Dr. Jimmam Lar, the second returning officer, after two months of uncertainty over the winner of the 18th March governorship and National / State Houses of Assembly election held in Plateau Central senatorial district of the state.
The documents in existence and designated as exhibits P8c and P8d were offered through Pw1, however the forms EC8A1 and EC8G were owned by the first respondent, INEC, and are thus designated as exhibits P22 and P22, respectively.
The documents specified in the subpoena that Prof. Daniel Davou Dabi signed but failed to proclaim the winner due to some agents’ refusal to sign acknowledging the fraud in the voting units are the evidence that we are referring to.
Nyilini stated that they had verified PW1 had provided the paperwork, and INEC had promised to produce more; but, as of right now, these documents are lacking.
After failing to submit crucial documents at the ongoing Election Tribunal hearing in Jos, Plateau state on Monday, September 25, 2023, the REC was given a 12-hour deadline or risk going to jail.
The Plateau Central Senatorial District results performed by Prof. Daniel Davou Dabi were still in INEC’s possession, but the Chairman of the Election Tribunal ordered INEC to produce them.
Philip Nyilini, the petitioner’s attorney, claims that his client’s application is based on section 69 of the electoral act, which designates INEC’s resident commissioner as the chief custodian of the documents because the officer charged with producing these crucial records is refusing to do so in opposition to the assertion made by the respondents in exhibit P32 in paragraph 2 of EC8E1.
Nyilini persisted by saying that the missing documents are crucial to the case, but the first respondent’s attorney, Mr. Sani Rabiu, informed the trial tribunal that documents 4 and 7 were in INEC’s possession. When the representative of REC presented them, the court acknowledged them as exhibits and marked them as such.
The respondent requested a 48-hour adjournment of the hearings so they could process the documents, and the petitioners emphasised that they required the records to speak to the tribunal and support their cause in those proceedings.
When the stand down was ordered from 9 am to 1 pm to allow the petitioners and counsel for the first respondent to visit INEC and the counsel for INEC claimed that the REC was not in town, Sani, who had promised the tribunal that he would produce the documents listed, was nowhere to be found.
