In the case of Atiku Abubakar, three of the Independent National election Commission’s (INEC) ad hoc presiding officers have testified against the election umpire and President Bola Ahmed Tinubu (BAT).
This occurred on Friday at the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, location of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT).
The Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device failed to send the scanned result sheet of the presidential election, according to the three INEC employees, despite being trained before to the 2023 general elections.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku, who has sued INEC for announcing Tinubu as the winner of the presidential election, presented the trio of electoral officials.
Chris Uche (SAN), the PDP attorney, informed the court during the Friday session’s resumed session that he will continue presenting evidence by calling PW14, the next subpoenaed witness, to testify.
The subpoenaed witness, Grace Ajagbonna, a resident of Egbe, Yagba West LGA, Kogi State, and a former member of the National Youth Service Corps, showed up.
Akin Olujimi (SAN), Tinubu’s attorney, however, stood to reiterate his objection to the PDP’s presentation of the subpoenaed witnesses.
Both the INEC attorney, A.B. Mahmoud (SAN), and the APC attorney, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), made objections and urged the court not to accept the witnesses’ testimony.
Uche, however, requested the court to completely toss out the arguments. The chairman of the five-person PEPC panel, Justice Haruna Tsammani, stated that the decision regarding the objection would be delivered along with the verdict.
After that, Ajagbonna took the witness stand under oath and stated that INEC had hired her to serve as an ad hoc presiding officer during the election of 2023.
She also displayed the letter of recognition from INEC confirming her appointment as an ad hoc staff member.
After that, Justice Mahmoud questioned her on how successfully she performed in her duty and the outcome of the election.
She gave a positive response but said that when she attempted to provide the scanned results of the Presidential and National Assembly (NASS) elections, the latter would not transmit.
“I continuously tried it. I kept saying it one after another, but nothing worked, the witness claimed. The next question was if she had received training for the BVAS’ offline functions.
Ajagbonna claimed she is unable to recall anything other than being instructed by INEC to use the BVAS to scan results, send them, and then head to the collation center.
She continued by informing the court that she had been dissatisfied when the BVAS machine failed to transmit the presidential election results sheets to the voting unit.
She informed Justice Mahmoud, “My Lord, to be completely honest, I am not happy that I was unable to transmit the (presidential) election results.”
Abidemi Joseph, a second INEC ad hoc presiding officer, announced her arrival by stating that she was from Niger State.
Joseph claimed that the election results could not be conveyed by the BVAS when the same questions posed to the first witness were repeated.
The same questions were also put to Edosa Obosa, a third person and former NYSC corps member who serves as the state’s presiding officer.
In her response, Obosa stated that she attempted to use a BVAS device to upload the scanned result but was unsuccessful.
The three witnesses all admitted that they delivered the original result sheet to the Ward collation center along with a copy that was also signed by party representatives.
After that, the witness was excused from the witness stand, and the PDP petition was postponed until Saturday, June 10.
petitions contesting President Tinubu’s victory in the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential election have been heard by the PEPT since Tuesday, May 30.
The petitioners opposing Tinubu’s declaration include the PDP and Atiku, the Labour Party and Peter Obi, and the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM).
On the other hand, the APC, Kashim Shettima, Tinubu, and INEC are among the respondents.
According to the results released by INEC, Tinubu received 8,794,726 votes, Atiku received 6,984,520 votes, and Obi came in third with 6,101,533 votes.
