“Images captured on BVAS whether transmitted manually or electronically will not affect the integrity of an election”, a Deputy Director Information Technology Department of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has told the Presidential Election Petitions Court.

Dr. Lawrence Bayode who was the only witness called by the electoral umpire said practical election is completed at the polling unit level when the Presiding Officer counts votes, collate and sign it with political party agents on Form EC8A.

The INEC IT practitioner disclosed this on Monday shortly before INEC closed its defence in the suit filed by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar challenging the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu.

In his Evidence in Chief, Mr. Bayode informed the court that he enforced the cloud trail log and also signed the Certificate of Compliance pursuant to Section 84 of the Evidence Act.

Under cross examination by the Lead Counsel to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Wole Olanipekun Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) the INEC witness informed the court that the election was free, fair and in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act.

Dr. Bayode, under cross examination by the Lead Counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC) Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN confirmed to the court that technical glitches experienced on election day did not affect the actual scores of the candidates as the actual score of each candidate remain intact. He explained further that Collation of the result was done manually adding that: “INEC does not have electronic Collation of results”.

He told the court that he downloaded the cloud trail log from INEC’s account on Amazon Web Services to monitor activities on the account. Under cross examination by Lead Counsel to the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Chief Chris Uche, the witness told the court that some of the Presidential Election results were uploaded on the day of election.

Dr. Bayode who confirmed to the court that he supervised the configuration of the BVAS said the technical glitches happened on the iRev and not on the BVAS. Asked whether he was aware of the EU Observer Report on the 25 February elections, the Deputy Director said he was aware but he has not seen it.

INEC tendered four documents to defend itself while the APC also tendered a Nigerian Tribune newspaper report published on 23 February,2023.

INEC Witness Failed to Show Up in Peter Obi’s Case on Monday

Earlier on Monday the petition of the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) Mr Peter Obi and his party was stalled at the Presidential Election Petition Court following the inability of the first respondent, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to open it’s defence and call it’s first witness.

After three weeks of legal fireworks triggered by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Mr. Peter Obi to invalidate the outcome of the 25 February presidential election at the court and and one week break, the respondents were scheduled to open their defence this week .

The first respondent in the case, INEC, failed to open it’s defence in the case filed by Mr Peter Obi before the five-member panel of the court headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani as the electoral umpire’s Lead counsel Mr. A. B. Mahmoud, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) informed the court that his first witness was not in court.

According to him, the first respondent would be calling three witnesses to defend itself stressing that the witness scheduled for Monday’s morning court session “unfortunately would not be able to make it to court”.

“In view of that, we’ll ask that the matter be adjourned till tomorrow morning”, Mr. Mahmoud said.

According to the report of the pre – hearing sessions, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima’s lead counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN had said he was prepared to defend his client’s victory with a total of 39 witnesses in all the pending cases.

Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN, lead counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC) disclosed that the party would present 25 witnesses to defend its victory.

While on its part, INEC informed the court that it would call three witnesses . The first respondent has three days to defend itself in the petition.

Mr Obi in his petition had called 13 out of the 50 witnesses he proposed to call to prove his case against Mr Tinubu.

In the suit, Mr Obi’s legal team led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu SAN tendered several electoral documents comprising BVAS reports, iRev reports, video exhibits, polling stations results, Vice President Kashim Shettima’s nomination form, a copy of $460,000 forfeiture judgment, reports of polling stations where elections did not hold and record of PVCs collected.

Obi’s expert witness, Ms. Mpeh Ogar, told the court that a report of the health status of Amazon Web Services ( AWS) which hosts the INEC iRev portal, showed no technical glitches on 25 February 2023.

Ms Ogar, a cloud engineer and architect at Amazon Web Services Incorporated, said the INEC’s IReV portal did not experience any glitches to justify the failure to upload real-time the polling unit results of the 25 February presidential election. Another witness, Mr. Lawrence Nwakaeti, a lawyer from Anambra State, told the court that President Tinubu was fined in the US for allegedly trafficking in narcotics.

Mr Obi’s lawyer, Chief Jibrin Okutepa SAN tendered some court documents purporting to be the US court’s decision awarding $460,000 fine against Mr Tinubu for illicit drugs trafficking imposed by the United States District Court, Northern District of Illinois, Eastern Division.