The Presidential Election Petitions Court has reviewed the video of the press conference by the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mahmoud Yakubu and two others connected to the February 25 election.
In the play back of the video, which are Channels TV interviews and a news bulletin tendered by the Labour Party (LP) and Peter Obi on Saturday, the INEC chairman was seen saying there will be no going back on the transmission of results from the polling on the election day.
The court also viewed a second video in which INEC Commissioner in charge of Information and Voter Education, Festus Okoye confirmed the two modes of collation of election results to include transmission from polling units, which would be taken physically to the ward collation centre.
“If there is a dispute you refer back to the electronically transmitted results,” he said in the interview.
He further explained the failure of the upload of results on election day was due to technical hitches.
The court also viewed a third video of then APC candidate, Bola Tinubu announcing Kashim Shettima as his running mate after his visit to former President, Muhammadu Buhari in Daura, Katsina State, which LP’s counsel, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN) said was relevant for their ground of double nomination against the APC.
Tribunal refuses Obi, LP’s 12 questions
The court also refused the 12 interrogatories by Peter Obi and LP to INEC technology experts used in the February 25 presidential election.
The five-member panel of justices led by Justice Haruna Tsammani on Saturday held that the application was made out of time.
The panel noted that in an election petition, a party who wishes to file further particulars or interrogators may do so not later than 10 days after filing the reply to the respondents reply.
“They filed their reply on April 21 while the request to serve interrogatories on INEC was filed on May 24, 2023,” Justice Tsammani said.
“Therefore, it was filed out of the statutory time as stated in the First Schedule of Electoral Act, 2022.”
Following the request made on June 8 by LP’s counsel, Patrick Ikwueto (SAN) for leave to move the interrogatories, counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Kemi Pinheiro (SAN) had objected to the questions, arguing that having not been followed up at the pre-hearing session, they are deemed abandoned.
Counsel to President Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, Akin Olujinmi (SAN) and the APC, Lateef Fegbemi (SAN) also adopted Pinheiro’s argument in objecting to the questions.
Among the 12 questions to INEC ICT experts by Obi and LP are “who created/deployed the four (4) Applications Patches/Update’ to fix the HTTP 500 error that prevented ‘the e-transmission of the results of the presidential election on 25th February 2023?
“If the presidential election was conducted concurrently with the National Assembly elections on the same day and at the same time, using the same technological devices, why were there glitches only with respect to the presidential election?”
The court had further taken the evidence of two witnesses of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Atiku Abubakar.
The witnesses: Alheri Ayuba and Sadiya Mohammed Haruna told the court that they could not upload results of the form EC8As from polling units as they were trained to do.
When counsel to APC, Solomon Umoh (SAN) asked her whether she realised that one Felix Blessing was entered for the polling unit on the IREV, Ayuba, who was the presiding officer in Garki, Abuja, said she does not know the name as the presiding or ward collation officer.
