By WANDOO SOMBO/EDITH NWAPI

The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, on Wednesday blamed the Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), for clogging the wheel of progress in the prosecution of his petition.

Atiku told the Presidential Election Petition Court, (PEPC) on Wednesday in Abuja that inspite of paying N6.69 million to the commission for certified true copies of documents he intends to tender in evidence, the commission failed to make the documents available.

Speaking through his lawyer, Mr Chris Uche, SAN, the petitioner said that it was discouraging for the commission to say that some of document they paid for were outside Abuja.

“We thought all these documents will be made available to us and we wont have to go to the states to collect.”

Uche then proceeded to tender certified true copies of documents for 10 out of 21 local government areas of Kogi which were the only documents the commission had made available for the day.

The petitioners also tendered form EC8D for Anambra state.

The News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) reports that Form EC8D is the form for election result from the state.

NAN reports that Abubakar asked the PEPC to declare him Nigeria’s president-elect.

Alternatively, Atiku urged the court to cancel the election and order a fresh election due to alleged irregularities that marred the Feb. 25 poll in thousands of polling units.

These are part of the seven prayers anchored on five grounds in the petition he filed against the victory of the president-elect, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).(NAN)