On Thursday night, the Labour Party and Peter Obi, its presidential candidate in the February 25 election, asked the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja for permission to question the Independent National Electoral Commission.
The LP and Obi are requesting information from INEC about the information and communication technology expertise they utilized to conduct the poll, among other things. Obi presented 12 questions to be sent to INEC in two different motions argued by their attorney, Patrick Ikweto (SAN), in an effort to support their suit that questioned the validity of the election. If the interrogatory application were granted, the petitioners claimed, it would support their assertions that the election’s conduct was faulty.
Kemi Pinhero (SAN), the attorney for INEC, contested to the decision on the grounds that the application was filed outside the legal window of time. He argued that the court lacked authority to consider the motion because it had been moved beyond the pre-hearing session.
Also, the proposal was contested by Tinubu’s attorney, Akin Olujimi (SAN), and the APC’s attorney, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN). The decision regarding Obi and his party’s interrogatory applications was reserved by the presiding Justice, Haruna Tsammani.
He postponed the petition’s remaining hearings until today, Friday. In the meantime, amid intense opposition from the respondents, the People’s Democratic Party and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, on Thursday called their first subpoenaed witness at the Presidential Election Petition Court.
Friday Egwuma, an INEC ad hoc employee, testified before the court that he worked as the presiding officer at Polling Unit 17 in Aba North, Abia State.
When transferring the captured presidential results to the INEC Results Viewing Portal, Egwuma claimed to have encountered technical difficulties in his testimony to the court.
He said that after being recorded on the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System, the results could not be electronically communicated in real-time.
During his cross-examination by INEC’s attorney, A.B. Mahmoud (SAN), Egwuama provided the testimony.
He emphasized that the issue he ran into exclusively related to the presidential results because the results for the House of Representatives and Senate elections were seamlessly electronically submitted to the portal.
However, he pointed out that in this circumstance, using an offline mode was an alternative.
Prior to the witness’s testimony, the respondents had objected to using his deposition as evidence.
Until the verdict was rendered, the court held off on ruling on the objection.
