Lawyers argue over ‘delay tactics’ | IReV glitch disputed — highlights of Monday’s tribunal session

At the presidential election petition court on Monday, a witness said there was no network glitch as suggested by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Here are five major highlights from the proceedings.

‘NO TECHNICAL GLITCH AS CLAIMED BY INEC’

Clarita Ogar, the seventh witness of the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, disputed claims that there was a network glitch during the conduct of the February 25 presidential election.

Ogar is a cloud engineer and architect with Amazon Web Services Incorporated, a firm which INEC engaged to provide technical support during the general election.

INEC had said its inability to upload election results to IReV in real-time was due to technical hitches related to scaling up the platform from managing off-season and state elections to nationwide polls.

During his testimony, Ogar said the AWS cloud did not record any technical glitch in the country on February 25.

The subpoenaed witness tendered six reports showing the status of the AWS dashboard of cloud services in 33 regions and certificates of compliance.

Although the respondents objected to the admissibility of the documents, they were entered as exhibits.

LP, INEC BICKER OVER DOCUMENTS

At the court session, LP accused INEC of deliberately using delay tactics to frustrate the case.

Jibrin Okutepa, counsel to the petitioners, told the court that INEC is holding the legal team “hostage” by refusing to provide the documents requested.

He also alleged that INEC has refused to accept the service of the subpoena issued to them.

Responding, Abubakar Mahmoud, INEC counsel, described Okutepa’s allegations as “unfounded”. 

STOP BLACKMAILING YOURSELVES, COURT WARNS

The five-member panel of the court warned the parties against frustrating each other’s case.

The panel urged the lawyers to imbibe the spirit of cooperation and settle their dispute amicably.

Monsurat Bolaji-Yusuf, the only female on the panel, said “this allegation is becoming a recurring issue”.

“I think you should realise that sentiments, playing to the gallery, blackmail or whatever from anybody will not help in the determination of this case. What will help is cooperating in the interest of this nation,” she said.

“You don’t want people outside to hear that you are being denied documents and the right to present your case. Therefore we do not want a display of an attempt to blackmail or an attempt of the other side to frustrate the case of anybody.

“This is a serious business and counsel on all sides should take it seriously. We do not want a repeat of this.”

APM REFUSES TO WITHDRAW PETITION

The Allied Peoples Movement (APM) refused to discontinue its petition challenging the election of Bola Tinubu as Nigeria’s president.

Earlier, Wole Olanipekun, counsel to Tinubu and Kashim Shettima, the vice-president, drew the court’s attention to a judgment of the supreme court delivered on May 26.

The apex court had dismissed a pre-election appeal filed by the PDP which claimed Shettima had a double nomination.

However, at the resumed proceeding, Gideon Idiagbonya, APM counsel, said the party has analysed the judgment and still intends to continue with the petition.

There was no objection from the respondents as the panel noted that everyone is at liberty to pursue their petition.

The court fixed Wednesday for APM to call its sole witness.

THREE PRESIDING OFFICERS TESTIFY AGAINST INEC

Three witnesses who served as presiding officers (PO) for INEC during the February 25 polls told the tribunal that only the results of the presidential poll failed to upload to the IReV.

The POs are Janet Turaki (Yobe), Christopher Ardo (Bauchi) and Victoria Sani (Katsina).

They said the results of the senate and house of representatives polls were transmitted successfully but the presidential election results could not be transmitted.

The POs said despite complying with the online and offline transmission methods as they were trained to do, the results failed to upload.