Having been dismissed by many as vanquished defeated and battered – Mr. GNS Pwajok, the immediate PDP gubernatorial flag bearer in the 2015 election appears to be gaining legal grounds in his bid to upturn the election of Barrister Simon Lalong of the APC.

Information made available to ViewPointNigeria suggests that the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Jos, on Wednesday upheld request by PDP to tender vital documents at it disposal –with regards the polls. APC’s counsel at the high court attempted to block the tender of the documents on grounds that they are irrelevant and redundant, but his plea was dismissed by the presiding judge.

At the time of filing this report, the exact nature and content of the vital documents remained a mystery –but ViewPointNigeria’s investigations suggests that these may not be unconnected with votes from Jos North, where APC garnered bloc votes in areas which the PDP has alleged voting malpractice.

Several documents which show voting inconsistencies and patterns were admitted at the tribunal and are billed for consideration. Some of these included, INEC certified documents which the PDP has alleged to be fake amongst other sundry documents. In the tribunal’s sittings, counsel to the petitioner had pleaded to the tribunal to tender documents for inspection by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to buttress the case. But this was vehemently objected to by the respondent’s (APC) counsel who sensed that allowing the documents to be tendered will jeopardise their case.

In the same vein –the APC is also said to hold some damning documents and results from key local government councils in Plateau North. These along with other documents are said to have equally been presented to the tribunal for consideration.

ViewPointNigeria Analysis

There is no doubt that this represents a significant gain for the PDP against the APC. This singular admission of evidence puts the case of the petitioner (PDP) at vantage position, but it remains unclear whether it is sufficient to upturn the election of the sitting governor.

APC on its own has equally tendered its own evidence of alleged fraudulent activity in local governments from Plateau North, where the number of votes casts were higher than the registered voters. And therefore the arbitration and reconciliation of these facts by the tribunal will be a matter of legal arguments.

The bloc votes that the APC garnered in Jos North was very significant and swung the pendulum and momentum from PDP to APC in the final hours of the race. If the tribunal rules that the evidence tendered is valid and that votes from the area be squashed, it may have significant ramifications to the present status quo. That said, proving such malpractices are never an easy feat, especially where counter allegations are equally being levelled against the PDP.

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Plateau Election Tribunal: Unease and jitters as court admits PDP’s evidence