Politics

Tinubu defends election’s victory at tribunal Tuesday

President Bola Tinubu will on Tuesday, July 4, open his defence at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja to defend his victory at the February 25, 2023, presidential election.

This is in the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.

Counsel for President Tinubu, Wole Olanipekun, SAN, made this known on Monday after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) closed its case against Atiku after calling a lone witness.

The electoral umpire opened and closed its case against the petitioners after calling one witness, Lawrence Bayode, and tendering some documentary exhibits in evidence.

One of the documents was a letter dated July 6, 2022, which Vice President Kashim Shettima (the third respondent) wrote to INEC.

The letter was the notification of his decision to withdraw his candidature for Senate under the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Borno Central senatorial seat.

Bayode, who was led in evidence by INEC’s lead counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, introduced himself as a Deputy Director of ICT for the commission.

Under cross-examination by Olanipekun, the witness stated that the presidential election was free, fair, credible, and conducted in compliance with the Electoral Act, 2022.

The witness also told the court that the technical glitch that occurred on election day did not affect the actual scores of the presidential candidates as manually computed by polling officers in the forms EC8As at the different polling units.

Bayode said INEC does not have an electronic collation system, noting that the results of the 2023 presidential election were manually collated and not electronically collated.

On his part, the counsel for APC, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, confronted the witness with a publication in Nigerian Tribune newspaper where the commission had, a few days to the election said it would no longer be able to go ahead with the electronic transmission of results.

The document was admitted in evidence amidst strong opposition from counsel for the petitioners, Chris Uche, SAN.

Uche, while cross-examining the witness, asked him if he was aware of the recently released European Union Observer Mission Report on the presidential election.

The witness said he was aware of the report even though he had not read it.

The respondents opposed the tendering of the document in evidence but reserved their reasons until the final address stage.

The court, however, admitted the document in evidence and marked it appropriately.

Uche proceeded to show the witness a certified true copy of the report and asked him to read a portion of the report where the EU said only 31 per cent of presidential election results uploaded on the IREV were mathematically correct.

They further stated that this was evident of the extent of training the commission gave to polling unit staff.

The witness also read a portion of the report where the EU stated that the 2023 presidential election was not a transparent and inclusive election as had been promised by INEC.

The witness insisted that the technological innovations introduced by the commission into the electoral process were to guarantee transparency and integrity of the results.

Uche, however, insisted that there was no technical glitch on the day of the presidential election and that the only glitch was human glitch or an INEC glitch.

After the witness was discharged from the witness box, the counsel for INEC told the court that the commission has no other witness to call or documents to tender.

The chairman of the five-member panel of the court, Justice Haruna Tsammani, therefore, adjourned hearing in the petition until Tuesday.

The Star