A witness of the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the February 25 presidential election, Mpeh Clarita Ogar admitted on Tuesday at the Presidential Election Petition Court that she has no mandate of the Amazon Web Services Incorporation to testify in the petitions challenging the election.
Mrs Ogar works as a cloud engineer and architect at the International Company.
She told the Justices that she was in court in her personal capacity to give evidence in the petition filed by Peter Gregory Obi and his Labour Party against the declaration of Tinubu as winner of the poll.
The witness, who was led in evidence by the counsel to the petitioners, Mr. Patrick Ikwueto (SAN) on Tuesday told the Court, under cross examination by counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) that she was in court in respect of the petition in her personal capacity and not through the mandate of her employer.
According to the witness, “The Subpoena was not delivered to Amazon but delivered to me. Am here as an expert witness, am not here on the mandate of Amazon and, it is not true that am here as a Labour Party activist”.
In response to a question by counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Clarita Ogar insisted that there was no technical glitches on February 25, 2023 when the Presidential election was held.
Also at the proceedings, on Tuesday, the chairman of INEC, Prof Yakubu Mahmood responded to the subpoena served on him on May 30 and that of June 13, 2023 by producing some documents through two senior officials of the Commission.
The Deputy Director, department of Certification and Complaints of INEC, Mrs. Moronkeji Tairu tendered the documents contained in the subpoena dated May 30 issued on the INEC chairman.
She said some of the documents required by the petitioners are not in the custody of the Commission and that some of the documents came from INEC’s offices across the states and that because of lack of logistics, those documents could not be produced as at Tuesday and added that the Subpoena dated May 30 was served on the Commission on Monday.
While assuring that the rest documents would be made available within the week, the INEC official presented documents on INEC’s manual for election officers.
Lead counsel to the petitioners, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN) informed the court that INEC refused service of the Subpoena all the while and all efforts to serve the Commission proved abortive until Monday.
The Deputy Director, ICT department of INEC, Dr. Lawrence Bayode also presented some documents contained in the June 16 subpoena issued on the INEC Chairman and informed the court that the rest of the documents are work in progress.
The Justices of the court, led by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani adjourned further hearing in the petition to Wednesday June 21.
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