The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Atiku Abubakar plan to call Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the commission’s Secretary and a National Commissioner as witnesses in their case before the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC), their counsel hinted yesterday.
The lead lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN), dropped the hint yesterday at the resumed hearing in the petition filed by the PDP and Atiku against the outcome of the last presidential election.
Uche said although his clients have informed INEC’s legal team about their intention, they plan to apply by Thursday for the court to issue subpoena against the officials of the electoral umpire for them to appear and produce certain documents.
“We have already informed them. We are going to apply for subpoena on Thursday for the INEC Chairman and others to appear before the court to produce some documents…”, Uche said.
The petitioners called two witnesses yesterday, including Dr. Alex Ter, who claimed to have acted as the National Coordinator of the PDP’s National Situation Room.
Ter, who claimed to be a lawyer and politician, said the allegations in his written statement on oath about electoral infractions in many parts of the country were derived from information provided by his party agents across the country.
The witness, who said he was at his party’s National Situation Room in Abuja throughout the election period, said it was impossible for him to have witnessed all that happened, which he reflected in his statement.
He said his party had agents in all the polling units and collation centres, adding that he voted and the results were collated, announced to the hearing of everyone in his polling unit.
Ter said the result issued by INEC officials in his polling unit captured the signed result sheet with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device as required, but could not upload it immediately.
He said his main grouse about the whole process was that the results of the presidential election were not uploaded real time as promised by the INEC chairman.
Uche tendered through the witness, some documents, including the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV) report, which he said reflected that as at March 1, only results from 9403 polling units had been uploaded out of the total 176,846 polling units nationwide.
Under cross examination by lawyer to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), Ter claimed that the glitches experienced during the transmission of results were deliberate.
He also claimed that as at when INEC declared President Bola Tinubu as the winner of the election, less than 50 per cent of the results had been uploaded.
Under cross examination by lawyer to Tinubu, Akin Olujinmi (SAN), Ter said he was aware that the polling unit is the primary source of vote cast in an election, that it is at the polling unit that Form EC8A is issued and that it is at the polling unit that BVAS machine is used.
He, however, admitted that he was not at any polling unit on the day of the election and did not work in any of the collation centres.
The witness also admitted that he did not, in his statement, differentiate between the information that were from what he observed and those that were passed to him by his party’s agents on the field.
He also agreed that although he disputed the results as announced by INEC, he did not indicate, in his statement, what he believed were the correct results.
While being cross-examined by lawyer to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Solomon Umoh, (SAN), said it was only at the conclusion of election, after the results sheet has been signed that its image is to be uploaded to IReV.
Before Ter commenced his testimony, the petitioners served and played three short videos. The first was where INEC Chairman spoke about preparations for the election and assured that BVAS would be deployed and that results would be transmitted real time.
The second showed where INEC’s National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, said appropriate arrangements had been made to ensure transparent process, including making it impossible for one to vote with somebody else’s voter card, and the elimination of the use of incident forms.
The third video was of a press briefing by members of the European Union (EU) election observers mission who gave their assessment of the election, and noted that results were not uploaded as promptly as expected.
The petitioners’ second witness for the day, Olatunji Shelle, identified himself as a retired Naval Captain and Chairman of the PDP in Lagos State.
Shelle, under cross-examination by Mahmoud, said he voted during the election, but did not wait for the results to be announced, so he did not know which party won his polling unit.
He confirmed that election went well in his polling unit and that results were collated and entered into the Form EC8A as required.
The witness, who said he left his polling unit at about 2: 30pm, told the court that he visited about 40 polling units, where he spent about a minute in each of them.
Under cross examination by another APC lawyer, Yusuf Ali, (SAN), Shelle, who claimed in his statement that ballot boxes were snatched, said he did not know the number of such ballot boxes.
The witness, who claimed in his statement that violence took place in 15 polling units, said he witnessed the incidents, but took no action. He said although he is an ex-military officer, it was not his responsibility to take any action.
Further hearing resumes in the petition on Wednesday at 2pm.
During the morning session, Obi and the LP, who now have 10 days left in the three weeks allocated to them to present their case, tendered more documents.
According to the court’s schedule, Obi and his party are to present their case between May 30 and June 23.
The documents, which were mostly objected to by the lawyers to INEC, Tinubu, Shettma and the APC, were mainly certified true copies (CTCs) of election results sheets and reports used by INEC during the election.
The documents were then served from the bar by one of the petitioners’ lawyers, Peter Afuba (SAN).
The breakdown showed that 45 EC40GPU forms were tendered in 10 local government areas of Niger State, 23 in seven local government areas of Osun, 17 in three local government areas of Edo State and 52 EC40GPU forms in five local government areas of Sokoto were tendered.
They also tendered 15 forms EC40G in eight local government areas of Osun State, 12 forms EC40G1 in 12 local government areas of Edo, 15 forms EC40G in four local government areas of Sokoto and 9 forms EC40G1 in two local government areas of Sokoto.
The petitioners also tendered five reports on the conduct of the election in Niger State and eight in Edo to back up his allegations of malpractices during the conduct of the election.
They tendered IReV reports in 21 local government areas of Adamawa State, 20 in Ogun State, 16 in Ekiti State, 19 in Rivers State and 25 in Akwa Ibom State.
Further hearing in the petition continues at 9am today.
The Nation
