PEPT Update: How INEC Defended Their Role in the 2023 Election

The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) resumed today, July 4th, 2023, to hear the defense of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the petition filed by the Labour Party (LP) challenging the victory of President Tinubu and Vice President Shettima in the 2023 election. Here are the key points from today’s proceedings:

– The tribunal started at 9:24 am with the appearance of Dr Datti Ahmed for LP and Odunsanya Damilola George, Senior Legal Officer for APC.

– LP’s legal team was led by Dr Livy Uzoukwu SAN and PIN Ikwueto SAN, while AB Mahmood SAN represented INEC.

– INEC tendered five documents as evidence, which were objected by LP but admitted by the tribunal. LP also wanted to tender some documents from INEC, but the tribunal rejected them as LP’s case was closed.

– INEC’s witness, Dr Lawrence Bayode, Deputy Director of ICT, testified that he had been with INEC for 24 years and deposed a Witness Statement on Oath (WSOO) on April 10th, 2023. His statement was also objected by LP but admitted by the tribunal.

– He was cross-examined by Wole Olanipekun SAN (for BAT/Shett), Lateef Fagbemi SAN (for APC) and PIN Ikwueto SAN (for LP).

– He stated that blurred images downloaded from IREV did not affect the results forms EC8A, and that images on form EC8As uploaded to iREV were irrelevant to result collation.

– He also said that he was aware of e-Naira introduced under Buhari in 2021 and that the app had been taken off Google play store to fix tech issues.

– He admitted that physical forms EC8As were used by INEC to collate results, and that glitches were experienced but did not affect result collation.

– He confirmed that Cloud Trail showed activities of patches that were deployed on e-transmission app.

– He could not tell the results of APC on CTCs of iREV results he was holding because they were blurry.

– He explained the meaning of functionality, vulnerability and performance tests that were done on the e-transmission app before use.

With this, INEC closed their case and the next proceedings will be for BAT/Shett to begin their defense. The tribunal adjourned till tomorrow, Wednesday July 5th, 2023 by 9 am.

This blog post was written by @MissPearls, who are following the PEPT tribunal closely. Stay tuned for more updates on this case.