INEC Closes Defense Against Obi, LP Petition On 2023 Presidential Election

Nigeria’s Electoral Umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has closed it’s defense on the petition filed by Labour Party Presidential candidate, Mr Peter Obi challenging the outcome of the February 2023 Presidential Election.

The Electoral Umpire through its counsel, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Abubakar Mahmoud closed the defense on Tuesday after presenting one witness Dr. Laurence Bayode who is an Information Technology practitioner with the INEC to testify before the Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja.

Mahmoud tendered five documents to the court to defend his case.

They includes, certified true copies of APC’S letter of 6th July 2022, INEC’S Acknowledgement, INEC’S guidelines and Regulations for the 2023 election among others.

The documents were admitted as exhibits by justice Haruna Tsamani led panel.

Under cross examination by counsel to President Ahmed Tinubu Mr. Wole Olanipekum SAN, the INEC’s witness informed the court that, the technical glitch experienced during the uploading of the results did not affect the authenticity of the results.

He said, the physically collated results remained authentic and unchanged.

The witness confirmed that, the ECOWAS report on the election affirmed it’s authenticity.

Continuing his evidence in chief under cross examination, Counsel to Labour Party and it’s Presidential candidate, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria Mr. Patrick Ikweto asked the INEC witness to confirm the cloud trails of the specific of events, time, source and IP address among others which the witness denied.

The witness said, the hard copy of Election results obtained at polling units and uploaded to IREV should be the same and cannot affect the collation of results.

The INEC staff confirmed the blurry images when he was shown election results picked at random.

Dr. Bayode also informed the court on the difference between the performance and functionality tests conducted on INEC E- transmission portal, as well as vulnerability test on the back end server.

After taking the cross examination of the INEC witness, justice Haruna Simon Tsamani adjourned to 5th July for continuation of the defence against the petition by Peter Obi and the Labour Party.

Confidence Okwuchi