PDP, LP witnesses tackle INEC over Feb. 25 election day ‘glitch’

Day 15 of proceedings at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT), in Abuja, Monday, featured presentations by the two remaining petitioners challenging the declaration of the Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as winner and now president.

Both petitioners; the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, and the Labour Party (LP) with its presidential candidate, Peter Obi called up witnesses to the stand to back their petitions.

Interestingly, all witnesses called up by both the PDP and LP were unanimous in their claims that INEC was at fault, or that the BVAS system did not suffer any glitch on the election of February 25, as claimed by INEC.

Monday’s proceedings at the PEPT in Abuja also served as forum for the Labour Party legal team to decry the failure of INEC to cooperate with them by providing documents applied for, and court justices also directed the commission to provide.

According to LP counsel, Mr JS Okutepa, INEC has failed till date to release documents applied for through the court.

“This is to let the court know that INEC hasn’t given us all the documents we have applied for. They only released few documents to us.

“We have done everything humanly possible but still haven’t been given. We received few copies of IReV reports, on few local government areas (LGAs) in Lagos state. On the cursory look they were certified 29th May but we were just given today.

“It’s the same thing with Gombe. They gave us IReV reports for just 2 LGAs instead of all the Gombe state.

“We have written letters including the one I signed and delivered on the 20th of May 2023 directed to A.B Mahmud (INEC counsel). This is a time bound proceeding. INEC cannot refuse to give us what we requested. We requested for EC25A. We haven’t been given..It appears that INEC is deliberately frustrating the suit.

“As for the subpoena to them, we have copies and we apply to serve a copy of subpoena directly to the lead counsel,” Okutepa told the court.

In addition, LP’s lead counsel, Dr Livy Uzoukwu also brought up the notice before the court of INEC’s non-cooperation, as he accused the electoral umpire of dishonesty in failing to produce requested documents.

Barrister Uzoukwu, therefore, appealed for cooperation from all parties in the interest of the profession, just as the PEPT restated that its interest remains to be fair and deliver justice.

However, INEC counsel said he received an application and ‘replied promptly,’ adding: “JS Okutepa didn’t tell me if there’s any issue. We have produced documents and brought here; our subpoenaed witness have also come to testify in this court. I am taken aback. I’m totally surprised. We will approach them my lord and we are ready to help.”

For the witnesses proper, the LP called up a subpoenaed female staff of  Amazon Web Services (AWS) who is a Cloud engineer and architect.

The cloud engineer testified before the court that contrary to claims by the INEC National Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu of a glitch suffered by the commission’s server which hampered real time upload of results of February 25 election, tendered 33 reports showing the Health Status of Amazon Web Services’ Cloud in 6 regions the company hosts services and Certificate of Compliance.

According to her, INEC system did not encounter any glitches on the said day.

Despite objections by all respondents, the court admitted and tagged her evidence with an exhibit number.

The court admitted the 33 reports from the 6 regions and marked them as Exhibit PCJ 3 A-F and PCJ 4.

In the earlier proceedings, the PDP called up more witnesses, including; three ad hoc staff of INEC who acted as Presiding Officers (POs) in the February 25 election.

The witnesses told the PEPT justices that only the results of the presidential election refused to upload to IReV.

The three presiding officers were subpoenaed by Alhaji Abubakar Atiku and the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP).

Led in evidence by the petitioner’s counsel, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, the witnesses told the court that they were able to use the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine to transmit results for the senatorial and House of Representatives elections successfully.

They, however, told the court in their separate testimonies that they were unable to use the BVAS to transmit the presidential election results thereby making them unsatisfied with the entire election process.

The three witnesses, Janet Turaki, Christopher Ardo, and Victoria Sani told the court that they were presiding officers in Yobe, Bauchi, and Katsina states respectfully.

The witnesses all agreed that other aspects of the election went well until it was time to upload the presidential results then the BVAS machines refused to work.

Turaki, under cross-examination by counsel to INEC, Mr. Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN told the court that the accreditation of voters was successful and voting went on smoothly at her polling unit, adding that it was after she attempted to upload the presidential election result after capturing it with the BVAS machine that the network went awry.

The witness said that having failed to successfully upload the presidential election results, she handed over everything to her ward collation agent and filled out the complaint form that INEC had provided for such purposes.

She said that she and other party agents present signed the result on the form EC8A before she took it to the ward.