President Ahmed Bola Tinubu and Vice President Senator Kashim Shettima will open their defence on Wednesday, July 5, 2023, in the joint petition filed by the Labour Party and its flagbearer, Peter Obi, challenging Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
The five-member panel of Justices of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) fixed the date for Tinubu and Shettima to kick-start their defence.
The Tribunal issued the new date following the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which conducted the disputed election to close its case after calling just one witness.
After the evidence of the electoral body’s sole witness, Dr Lawrence Bayode who is the INEC’s Director of Information Technology (IT) department, and the adoption of his witness statement on oath deposed to on April 10, the lead counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), announced the closure of its case in the petition.
Leading the witness in evidence, Mahmoud tendered the cloud trail log report and certification as evidence.
The court thereafter admitted the documents as exhibits and considered them read and demonstrated before it.
Under cross-examination by Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), counsel to Tinubu and Shettima, the witness agreed that the foundation of any election conducted by INEC is the results recorded in Forms EC8As and that blurred results downloaded from INEC’s I-ReV will not affect the results recorded in Form EC8As.
The witness agreed with Olanipekun that the E-Naira, launched in October 2021, has not been activated due to technological impediments and that the E-Naira App had to be taken from the Google Play store to fix its technological glitches shortly after its launch.
He also agreed with Tinubu’s lawyer that elections are practically concluded at the polling unit when the presiding officers input election results into Form EC8As, announce openly to all parties and their agents, signs Form EC8As, and use the Biomodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine to capture the forms.
Answering questions from counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), the witness stated that it was the physical results in Forms EC8As that INEC used to compute the results of the Presidential election.
After the testimony of the sole witness, Mahmoud announced the closure of INEC’s defence in the petition filed by Obi and his party against Tinubu’s election.
