The Independent National Electoral Commission has opened and closed defences in the petition by Peter Obi against the outcome of the February 25 General election.
This action was taken during the court proceeding on Tuesday, July 6, by the counsel for INEC, A.B Mahmoud, SAN, in Abuja.
The court proceeding was led by a five-man panel which was headed by Justice Justice Haruna Tsammani.
Background
Excel had earlier covered the ongoing petition against the victory of President Bola Tinubu.
Recall that the Labour Party and Peter Obi with the People Democratic Party, Atiku Abubakar filed a lawsuit challenging the result of the February 25 general election, which brought Tinubu into power.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party prayed to the Presidential Election Court in Abuja to set aside the result of the general election, claiming that INEC had failed to follow the law guiding the election during the period.
Court Proceeding
Counsel for INEC, A.B. Mahmoud, SAN, during the proceedings yesterday morning closed defences after inviting the first witness, Lawrence Bayode, an assistant director in charge of its ICT department to talk.
Recall that Bayode during the session yesterday also testified in order to aid the commission’s defence against the petition by Atiku Abubakar, PDP.
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Bayode was led in evidence by the commission’s lead counsel, who also provided some documents during the proceedings.
The witness who examined the document thoroughly, claimed that if a blurred document were downloaded from INEC’s Result Viewing platform, such will not tamper with the physical results as recorded in the polling units results I.e the EC8A.
He further stressed that the images of forms EC8A that were captured with the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System and transmitted to IReV are not important for the compilation of results.
Bayode included that if what was downloaded from the IreV are not visible enough, it does not stop the physical results, as it could still be obtained.
The petitioners also submitted the E- transmission saver Web and compliance form through the witness.
Which was subsequently admitted and marked as evidence.
The witness further disclosed to the court that the pre-production test was put into action before the election.
The witness along with, Patrick Ikweato, SAN, counsel to the petitioners agreed that the report of the E-Transmission application identifies remediation to be used in order to resolve the high vulnerability identified in the report.
Court Decision
Subsequently, the court adjourned the case till tomorrow, July 7, while the president, Bola Tinubu and his Vice, Kassim Shetima will have the opportunity to open their defence.
