BY GODWIN OBI
Two officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Thursday, told the Presidential Election Petitions Court that they could not upload the February 25 presidential election results on the Result Viewing Portal (IReV) even though they were able to upload the Senatorial and House of Representatives results on the portal.
They disclosed this as the Labour Party (LP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) called more witnesses to testify before the Tribunal in the case against the victory of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
While the PDP summoned two witnesses, the LP summoned one witness.
The PDP’s witnesses were presiding officers during the presidential election in Abia and Bauchi States while the LP’s witness was a software engineer.
The proceedings began with the PDP calling two witnesses who were presiding officers. Both witnesses told the court that they could not upload the results of the presidential election on IReV unlike the Senatorial and House of Representatives results which were easily uploaded on the portal during the February 25 poll.
However, counsels for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Tinubu and the APC pleaded with the Tribunal not to adopt the submissions of the two witnesses, which caused the judges to take a recces for one hour.
Upon resumption, the Tribunal adjourned the case of the PDP till Friday.
After another hour of recess, the Tribunal resumed, and this time it was the turn of the LP who called just one witness, a software engineer, who said he carried out an investigation into the causes of INEC’s failure to upload results of the presidential election and established that there was a sabotage.
However, this didn’t go down well with the INEC’s counsel who objected to the submissions.
The LP was also allowed to tender more evidence from Bayelsa State before the Tribunal. The court also adjourned the LP’s case till Friday, June 9, 2023.
A witness for the Labour Party had earlier accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of an attempt to sabotage the 2023 presidential election.
At the resumed hearing , the presidential election tribunal, saw the LP bring forward its witness, Anthony Chinwo, who is a software engineer.
Under cross examination by legal counsels to the INEC, President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Chinwo said that he conducted investigations around the uploading of results to the Irev portal by electoral umpire and discovered that there was a deliberate plot to undermine the electoral process.
This claim infuriated A.B Mahmood the INEC counsel who objected and insisted that from the documents presented before the court, INEC used the highest level of software security.
LP, Obi Submit Final Results
After listening the witness statement and the counter-claims by the defense counsel, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, was allowed to submit to the court, the official national results of the February 25 presidential election.
Counsel to the LP, Professor Paul Ananaba (SAN) tendered the form EC8DA, which is the official national results of the election.
Ananaba also tendered the remaining exhibits in forms EC8As, EC8Bs and EC8Cs, which are polling units, wards and local government’s collation respectively for about 18 states where they are challenging the election results.
Some of the states tendered and admitted are Bayelsa, Benue, Cross River, Ebonyi, Edo, Lagos, Niger, Ondo, Oyo, Rivers, Sokoto, Ekiti and Delta.
INEC objects to states’ result presented by Obi
In a slight twist of events, INEC did not object to the Labour Party (LP) and Peter Obi’s submission of result sheets of the national collation for the February 25 presidential election.
There was no reason given for the non-objection position taken by INEC’s counsel.
In a similar vein, the lawyers for President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC) , Akin Olujinmi (SAN) and Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), did not oppose the submission made by the LP and its candidate, however, they objected to results the opposition party said it obtained from polling units, wards, local governments and states.
LP’s counsel, Ananaba informed the court that they are ready to tender forms EC40G series, which are forms for materials distribution across states, at the next hearing.
He said they will be responding to the reasons made for objecting and not objecting to the documents tendered before the court.
ADVERTISEMENTS
