INEC’s Adhoc Staff Testify on Inability to Transmit Results Real Time

*As Tinubu, INEC, APC kickAlex Enumah in Abuja

Two Presiding Officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday told the Presidential Election Petition Court ( PREPEC), that they were unable to transmit real time results of the presidential election conducted on February 25.
The two Presiding Officers, who served in Abia and Bauchi States respectively stated this at the resumed hearing of the petition of Atiku Abubakar, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)
Both witnesses were subpoenaed by the court to give their evidence, following an application of Atiku and the PDP.
First to testify was one Mr Friday Egwumah, a PO for Polling Units 017, Aba North, ward 3, Abia State and a former member of the National Youth Service Corps (NYSC).

According to Egwumah, everything went peacefully in his polling unit during the election, without any molestation, adding that at the end of voting and collation of the votes, he went to his ward to hand over all polling items, including the results from his unit, before going home.
Responding to question from INEC’s lawyer, Mr Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, the 1st subpoenaed witness told the court that he experienced technical glitches at the point of uploading the captured presidential results to the IReV portal.
Egwumah noted that the glitches was related only to the presidential results as other results like the Senatorial and House of Representatives polls were electronically transmitted to the portal seamlessly.
When asked whether he was aware of offline transmission, the witness explained that the information/results captured in the Bi-modal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) were uploaded whenever there was a network.
The witness observed that he did not breach any law in the conduct of his assigned task and told the court that the candidate of the Labour Party won the election in his pulling unit.

The 2nd subpoenaed witness, Grace Timothy, also corroborated the claim of Egwumah, adding that after the counting and announcement of results which she signed alongside agents of political parties in her polling unit, she encountered difficulties in uploading the presidential results real time to the IReV.
The ex-Corper, however, stated that she then took the materials and results to her ward for submission before going home.
Earlier, INEC, Tinubu and the APC had objected to the application by Atiku’s lawyer, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, that the witnesses be allowed to adopt their witness statement on oath.

According to Tinubu’s lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, the petitioners ought to have front-loaded the statement of subpoenaed witness at the time of filing the petition.
Olanipekun accordingly asked the court to reject the witnesses and discountenance their statements on grounds of violating the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022.
Responding, Mahmoud, who told the court that INEC would ordinarily not have objected to the adoption of the witness’ statements because they were supposed to be INEC’s Adhoc staff, said because of the position of the law, they will be aligning themselves with the submission of Olanipekun.

Similarly, APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, in objecting to the adoption of the subpoenaed witnesses statement, faulted the action of the petitioners, advising that the petitioners apply for leave of the court for extension of time to enable them bring in the subpoenaed witness’ statement on oath.
Responding, Uche urged the court to discountenance the objections of the respondents for been utterly misconceived and designed to delay the proceedings.
Atiku’s lawyer pointed out that there was a distinction between subpoenaed witnesses and willing or ordinary witnesses, adding that, “because they are being compelled to appear before the court, they do not fall into the category of additional witnesses…”.

After listening to the submissions of parties, Presiding Justice, Haruna Tsammani, stood down the matter for the court to deliver its ruling.
However, on resumption, he announced that ruling in the objections had been reserved and would be delivered alongside the final judgment. He also ordered that the evidence of the three subpoenaed witnesses be taken and the respondents to cross-examine them accordingly.

Hearing continues today.