Closing Defence in Obi’s Petition: INEC Concludes its Presentation at the Presidential Tribunal
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) concluded its defence on Tuesday in response to Peter Obi’s petition challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.
Bola Tinubu was declared the winner of the election and was inaugurated as president on May 29.
Obi, representing the Labour Party, is urging the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja to invalidate Tinubu’s victory based on allegations of non-compliance with electoral laws by INEC.
During the proceedings, INEC’s counsel, A.B. Mahmoud, SAN, called Lawrence Bayode as the first witness. Bayode, an assistant director in charge of INEC’s ICT department, had also testified the previous day in defense against a petition filed by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party.
Under cross-examination, Bayode stated that even if blurred documents were downloaded from INEC’s Result Viewing portal, they would not affect the physical results recorded in the polling unit results (form EC8A). He clarified that images of form EC8A captured through the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System and transmitted to IReV were not relevant for result collation.
Responding to queries from the counsel for the All Progressives Congress, L.O. Fagbemi, SAN, the witness informed the court that the glitch encountered during the previous presidential election did not impact the collation of results. He further mentioned that clear physical results could be obtained if the downloaded data from IReV was unclear.
The petitioners also submitted the E-transmission saver Web and compliance form as evidence through the witness, which were admitted and marked accordingly. The witness stated that a pre-production test was conducted before the election.
The witness agreed with the petitioners’ counsel, Patrick Ikweato, SAN, that the report of the E-Transmission application identified remediation measures to resolve the high vulnerability identified in the report.
The five-member panel, headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani, adjourned the proceedings to the following day (Wednesday) when Tinubu and his vice-president, Kassim Shetima, would present their defense.
