The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has
opened and closed its defence in the petition by Peter Obi and the Labour Party
(LP) before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, announced the closure
of the first respondent’s case after the conclusion of the testimony of its
sole witness, Dr Lawrence Bayode, a Deputy Director in the Information and
Communication Technology (ICT) Department of INEC.
Before calling on its witness, INEC tendered some documents
which were admitted and marked as exhibits.
Led by Mahmood, the witness told the court that he worked
for INEC for 24 years.
Under cross-examination by Patrick Ikwueto, SAN, counsel for
the petitioners, the witness told the court that the testing of the software
application for the election was carried out on Feb 4.
He added that there was a report on the testing but it was
not with him in the court.
The petitioners, however, tendered the E- transmission saver
Web and compliance form through the witness which was admitted and marked as
evidence.
The witness told the court that the pre-production test was
carried out before the election.
When asked if the hard copy of the results would be
different from the ones in the IreV, he said no.
He, however, added that anything could happen when sending
the results from form EC8A to the IreV.
He admitted that performance, functionality and
vulnerability tests were carried out before the election.
The witness agreed with Ikwueto that the report of the
e-Transmission application identifies remediation to be undertaken to resolve
the high vulnerability identified in the report.
The witness said he does not know INEC ‘s web address where
its materials are published.
In his cross-examination, Wole Olanipekun, SAN counsel for
Tinubu and Shettima asked if the foundation and authenticity of any election by
INEC are rooted in forms EC8A and EC8E, to which the witness replied, yes.
The witness added that blurred documents downloaded from
INEC IreV would not affect the physical results in form EC8A because the image
is of no relevance.
He said the election ended with the recording, snapping and
sending to INEC ‘s IreV.
Answering questions from APC counsel, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN,
the witness said the physical results are used for computing the election final
results and that the glitches that occurred on the day of the election did not
affect the collation of the results.
He added that if what was downloaded from the IreV are not
clear the physical results could also be obtained.
He told the court further that ECOWAS monitored the election
but he does not have their report.
The witness stated that the cloud trial log account of INEC
can be obtained from Amazon Web Services (AWS).
He added that this shows the patches that were deployed on
E- transmission applications on AWS to fix the glitches that were encountered
on election day.
After the testimony of the sole witness, Mahmoud told the
court that INEC’s defence in the Obi and Labour Party petition is closed.
Olanipekun later told the court that Tinubu and Shetimma,
who are listed as second and third respondents in the petition will tomorrow
open their defence.
The five-member panel presided over by Justice Haruna
Tsammani adjourned until tomorrow for Tinubu and Shettima to open their
defence.
Obi and his Labour Party (LP) are petitioners in the
petition marked CA/PEPC/03/2023 challenging the election which brought
President Bola Tinubu into power.
Respondents are Independent National Electoral Commission
(INEC) President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima and the All
Progressives Congress (APC.)
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