The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) completed its defence in Peter Obi’s petition challenging the outcome of the February 25 presidential election.
The election declared Bola Tinubu as the winner, who was subsequently inaugurated as the president on May 29.
Peter Obi, representing the Labour Party, has petitioned the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja, seeking to invalidate Tinubu’s victory on the grounds that INEC did not adhere to electoral laws.
During the recent court proceedings, INEC’s counsel, A.B. Mahmoud, SAN, presented its first witness, Lawrence Bayode, an assistant director responsible for the ICT department.
Bayode had previously testified in the defense of INEC 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, it would not impact the physical results recorded on the polling unit results forms known as form EC8A.
During the examination by counsel for the All Progressives Congress (APC), L.O Fagbemi, SAN, the witness stated that the technical issue experienced during the previous presidential election did not affect the collation of the election results.
He clarified that the images of forms EC8A captured with the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System and transmitted to IReV were not relevant for the result collation. However, he mentioned that if the downloaded images from IReV were unclear, the physical results could still be obtained.
Additionally, the petitioners submitted the E-transmission saver Web and compliance form through the witness, which was admitted and marked as evidence. The witness informed the court that a pre-production test was conducted prior to the election.
Furthermore, the witness agreed with the petitioners’ counsel, Patrick Ikweato, SAN, that the report of the E-Transmission application identified necessary actions to address the significant vulnerability outlined in the report.
The proceedings were adjourned by the five-member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, with the next session scheduled for tomorrow (Wednesday), during which Tinubu and his vice, Kassim Shetima, will present their defense.
