The Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, presented a security expert, Dr. Chibuike Ugwoke as one of their subpoenaed witnesses (PW8) before the Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja on Wednesday.
Obi’s legal team, represented by P.I Ikweto SAN, asked him to enter the witness box and give his evidence in chief.
But before the witness could give evidence, INEC lawyer, A.B. Mahmoud SAN, said the expert’s statement on oath was only received by him minutes before the proceedings commenced.
He asked that cross examination of the witness be adjourned till Thursday so he could study his statement and question him appropriately.
Lawyers representing President Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun SAN and Lateef Fagbemi SAN, aligned with the submission of INEC.
Ikweto equally aligned with the respondents that his seventh witness would be cross-examined tomorrow.
Having taken note of their positions, the court directed the witness to go ahead to give his evidence in chief.
The respondents rose up again and urged the court not to take his evidence but Ikweto asked the court to allow his witness to continue.
The panel reserved ruling on their assertions till the time of final judgement.
Dr Ugwoke continued by telling the court that he is a cyber security expert living in Abuja.
He referred to a meta data (metadata is the hidden data that accompanies an image, video, and file in the internet) document regarding the INEC Results Viewing Portal IRev, and other online information relating to the election.
The security expert also tendered sources and archived links to materials (press releases) issued by INEC from 2018 to 2023.
One of the documents includes an INEC statement tagged “Alleged plot to abandon the Electronic Transmission of Results to IREV portal”, signed by Festus Okoye and dated November 11, 2022.
Ikweto asked the court to admit the documents cited by the security expert as Peter Obi’s evidence in the case.
Again, the respondents objected to the admissibility of the documents (metadata and INEC press releases) saying they would state the reasons for their objections at their final address.
The five-man panel of the court noted the position of the lawyers but admitted the documents cited by the security expert as evidence.
“The document is admitted in evidence and marked as exhibits,” Justice Haruna Tsammani held while discharging the witness.
Obi’s lawyer, Ikechukwu Ezechukwu SAN, then called Onoja Oloko Sunday, a staff of Women and Child Rescue Initiative, an NGO, as his next witness for the day.
The witness said he served as an election observer duly certified by INEC to observe the 2023 general elections.
Ikechukwu asked that his witness’ identity card be tendered in evidence but that was objected to by lawyers representing INEC, Tinubu and the APC.
However, the court admitted it in evidence.
Under cross-examination by INEC lawyer, Sunday admitted that the ID card he submitted is not an accreditation from INEC.
According to him, the only role he played in the polling units was observation.
He said from his observation, voting and counting went well except for the real-time transmission of scanned copy of polling unit results using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS machine.
But he agreed that he was not in a position to state that real-time transmission did not happen at the polling units he observed because he was not an INEC presiding officer.
“Your party won the election in that polling unit?”, Mahmoud asked, to which he replied “I did not work for any political party.”
Under cross-examination by Tinubu’s lawyer, Emmanuel Ukala SAN, he said the subpoena (summon from the court) was issued to him personally and not to his NGO.
He agreed that electoral officials complied strictly with the conduct of elections at the polling unit he observed.
But he maintained that results were not uploaded electronically at the polling unit.
After giving his testimony, the court discharged him.
After him, Cephas Iya, an INEC ad-hoc presiding officer staff, came forward as Obi legal team’s ninth witness.
He testified that he and one Suleiman Mustapha supervised 24 polling units in Madagali Ward, in Adamawa state.
He told the PEPC that there were issues between PDP and APC agents at respective polling units in his ward but they were eventually resolved.
He added that scores were properly recorded on Form EC8A (polling unit result sheet) and announced but that of the presidential election could not be uploaded in real-time using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS machine.
He was subsequently discharged.
After that, another lawyer from Obi’s legal team, Peter Afuba SAN asked the court to admit several documents produced by INEC based on subpoena as part of his client’s evidence.
Part of the documents he tendered was the list of total number of registered voters and PVCs collected in 32 states, CTC of certificate of compliance in Edo State, supplementary IREV reports for 3 Local Government Areas of Benue , Cross Rivers (2 LGAs) and Lagos State, among others.
The respondents including INEC again objected to the admissibility of the certified documents from the electoral umpire.
They, however, reserved their reasons until the time of final address.
The court subsequently admitted the documents as part of the petitioners’ exhibits.
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