Two subpoenaed witnesses of the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) Mr. Peter Obi and his party on Thursday gave contradictory testimonies on same issues at the Presidential Election Petitions Court. Dr. Chibike Ugwuoke, a cyber security expert informed the court that for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deploy technology for the 2023
Two subpoenaed witnesses of the Presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP) Mr. Peter Obi and his party on Thursday gave contradictory testimonies on same issues at the Presidential Election Petitions Court.
Dr. Chibike Ugwuoke, a cyber security expert informed the court that for Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to deploy technology for the 2023 general election, it required ISO Certificate which he described as statutory requirement. ISO certification is a seal of approval from a third party body that a company runs to one of the international standards developed and published by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO).
According to Dr. Ugwuoke this condition was succinctly captured in the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA) Act.
But Mr. Emmanuel Edet Esq., Head of the Legal Services Department at NITDA subpoenaed to produce letters between INEC and NITDA, Certificate of clearance from NITDA to INEC and Report submitted to NITDA by INEC on the technology used in the 2023 general elections disagreed with Mr. Ugwuoke.
Mr. Edet ,however, could not produce any of the documents requested by the court because according to him: “we don’t have them”.
Under cross examination by Chief Wole Olanipekun Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) the witness who informed the court that he had read the NITDA Act 2007 said NITDA Act does not contain cyber security standard code and ISO Certificate mentioned by Mr Ugwuoke in his testimony. Mr. Edet also said there was no provision in the Act that mentioned INEC.
The witness, under cross examination by Lead Counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC)said he was aware the former Minister of Communication and digital Economy Prof. Isa Pantami informed the public that there were 16 million attempts to hack the INEC IT infrastructure on 25 February,2023. According to him, the former Minister who heads the ministry supervising NITDA attributed his source of the information to NITDA. But said INEC is an independent body in the conduct of the election in the country.
Earlier, Dr. Ugwuoke who is PW8 said he was approached on March 10 to do a cyber security report on the Presidential Election. According to him, he submitted preliminary report on March 17, this year and presented a final report to them in May. He said it not impossible that errors can be discovered after deployment of the application
Under cross examination by Chief Olanipekun, the witness said he did not physically visit INEC to inspect the BVAS machines adding that he also did not interrogate Mr. Festus Okoye Esq.
He confirmed to the court that he mentioned only three states; Bauchi, Anambra and Rivers in his witness statement on oath but referred to Benue in his metadata. Metadata is the information that describes the actual data.
The witness, under cross examination by Prince Fagbemi confirmed that he downloaded the results he attached to his report from 12 polling units from iRev adding that he did not interact with officials who posted it.
Also on Thursday, a digital forensic analyst subpoenaed to give evidence in the suit filed by Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) told the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) that the presidential election result in all the 110 BVAS machines he inspected were deleted.
The witness, Mr. Hitler Unwuonu Uwala under cross examination by Mr. A. B. Mahmoud Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN),Lead Counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission ( INEC) said he attached a Cellebrite Equipment Analyzer to the BVAS machines to extract data for his report.
Asked whether he got the consent of the electoral umpire to attach his device to the inspected machines, Mr Uwala said he did not but stressed that he and his team cannot do forensic investigation without attaching the device to the BVAS.
When reminded by the INEC counsel that the electoral body deployed 3163 BVAS machines to 2822 Polling Units in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), which is less than 3.4 per cent of the machines used in the FCT and less than 0.06percent nationwide, the witness said he did not know.
The witness declined to operate a BVAS machine presented to him by the INEC counsel arguing that: “we do not access the source of evidence directly, it is professionally wrong. It is absolutely wrong”.
Under cross examination by Lead Counsel to President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN , the witness who had presented two different numbers of BVAS he inspected told the court that it was a typographic error. Chief Olanipekun reminded the witness the Presiding Officers operated the BVAS machines on election, Mr Uwala answered in the affirmative but said he did not interrogate any of the Presiding Officers before writing his report.
Chief Olanipekun who drew the witness’ attention to the Form EC8As he attached to his report in which Labour Party won at Abaji Polling Unit with 71 votes, Luku Primary school where PDP won with 113votes, PDP won with 19votes at Ngwu Tundu of Abuja Municipal and Polling Unit 016 Ward 04 which PDP won with five votes ,asked him where he got the results. Responding, the witness said he got the results from the BVAS.
Responding to a question from Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN Lead Counsel to the All Progressives Congress ( APC), the witness said he did not examine physically Forms EC8A because it was not his line of duty.
Mr Eyitayo Jegede, counsel to Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the PDP also tendered series of Forms EC8A from four states.
They are Ogun state 20 LGAs, Ondo state 17 LGAs, Jigawa state 27 LGAs and Rivers state 20 LGAs.
The case was adjourned to Friday .
