INEC Calls Witness, Closes Defence In LP’s Petition…

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has closed its defence in the petition filed by the Labour Party after calling one witness at the Presidential Election Petitions Court.

At the resumed hearing of the petition filed by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi on Tuesday, the electoral umpire called one Lawrence Bayode, a Director in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department of the Commission.

The witness admitted that some of the results were downloaded from INEC’s portal. He also insisted under cross-examination that the results of the February 25 presidential election released by the commission are authentic.

Lawyer to the Labour Party, Patrick Ikwueto disagreed, saying the results could not be authentic when they were largely unreadable.

INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) also tendered some documents in evidence.

Under cross-examination, the witness said that even if blurred documents were downloaded from the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV), it would not affect the physical results as recorded in Forms EC8As which are not blurred.

According to Bayode, the images of Forms EC8A captured with BVAS and transmitted to IReV are not relevant for the collation of results.

He told the court that the glitch recorded during the presidential election did not affect the collation of the results.

For his part, the lawyer to President Bola Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima, Wole Olanipekun (SAN) said his clients would open their defence in the petition on Wednesday.