LP, Obi tender documents from 32 states, call up more expert witnesses at PEPT
Labour Party (LP) an its candidate, Peter Obi have called up more expert witnesses in addition to its earlier seven who have so far taken the stand at Wednesday’s proceedings at the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) in Abuja.
LP and Obi’s petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023, seeks the annulment of the declaration of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate and now president, Bola Tinubu in the February 25, 2023 election.
Lead counsel to the petitioners is Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN).
It would be recalled that as at last Tuesday’s hearing, the Labour Party and Peter Obi had called up seven witnesses, most of them subpoenaed staff of Independent National Electoral Commission (IINEC), AIT and Channels Television to mount the dock and testify before the court on conduct of the February 25 election.
The Labour Party has so far called up 7 expert witnesses, including; Barr. Lawrence Ukechukwu, Anthony Chinwo (JP Morgan Chase Software Engineer), Lucky Ukpewo (Channels TV Senior Reporter), Lummie Edevbie (Arise TV Director of Operations), Ijeoma Osamor (AIT Broadcaster), Prof. Eric M Ofoedu (Professor of Mathematics), and Ms Clarita Ogar (a Cloud Engineer from Amazon)
At the resumed hearing, Wednesday, the LP and Obi called up the 8th witness of the petitioners, Dr. Chubuike Ugwuoke, a cyber security expert, who adopted his statement on oath deposed to on June 21 as his evidence in the matter.
Documents tendered as evidence through the witness include data and a press statement by INEC on the alleged plot to abandon the electronic transmission of polling unit results to its portal.
The respondents, INEC (first), Tinubu (second), Kashim Shettima (third), and the All Progressives Congress (APC-fourth), had earlier objected to the adoption of the witness statement on oath as well as the admissibility of the other document and promised to give their reasons at the final address stage.
The court, however, admitted the documents, marked them as exhibits, and held that cross-examination of the witness by the respondents would be done on Thursday.
Second witness, Onoja Oloko Sunday and third witness of the day, Kefas Iya, who are the 9th and 10th witnesses for the petitioners, adopted their witness statements on oath. They both said the election process went well until the electronic transmission of the polling units’ election results to the INEC viewing portal, when the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine failed.
Onoja is a staff of the Women/Child Rescue Initiative (a non-profit organization) and election observer, who in his testimony disclosed that presidential election results were not transmitted from the polling units (PUs). He said voting and counting went well, Form EC8A was duly signed and LP won but results were not uploaded from PU but taken to collation centre.
Kefas is a civil servant and adhoc staff of INEC, and claimed to be non-patisan, who said himself and one Suleiman Mustapha supervised 24 units in Malagali ward in Adamawa State.
A copy of a document described as metadata and another titled ‘Alleged Plot to Abandon Online Transmission of Polling Units Results,’ signed by INEC Commissioner for Voter Education, Barrister Festus Okoye were presented and admitted by the court, though objected to by the respondents’ counsels.
After the evidence of the witnesses, the petitioners’ counsel, Peter Afoba (SAN), tendered Certified True Copies (CTCs) of a list of the total number of registered voters and Permanent Voters Cards (PVCs) for 32 states of the Federation and a Certificate of Compliance in respect of Edo, of which only INEC did not object to its admissibility, but the rest of the respondents urged the court not to admit it and promised to adduce their reasons at the final address stage.
Other documents tendered by the petitioners on Wednesday include CTCs of supplementary IReV reports in respect of three local government areas of Benue State, supplementary IReV reports for two local government areas of Cross River State, IReV reports in respect of 13 Local government areas of Lagos State, and CTCs of supplementary IRev reports for one local government area of Gombe.
Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani adjourned till Thursday, July 22, by 2pm for further hearing.
