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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is accused of suppressing crucial papers, according to the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
Peter Obi and the Labour Party’s (LP) legal team members disputed with their INEC counterparts on the assertion. There was a roar of voices.
While claiming that INEC was impeding the prosecution of Obi and the LP’s case by allegedly delaying to produce the papers they applied for and paid for, the electoral body’s lawyers once more charged the petitioners with trying to assign blame for their failure.
The exchanges began when, after the petitioners’ seventh witness adopted her written statement, a lawyer to the petitioners, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), told the court that INEC was frustrating his team in the prosecution of the case.
Okutepa said INEC did not only fail to release the documents they paid for, but the commission and its officials also rejected the subpoenas served on them to produce materials.
The lawyer said they have written INEC many times on the issue and have also sent letters to its lead counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), to help prevail on his client, to no avail.
“We wish to bring to the attention of the court the excruciating experience that we are having with INEC. To show bad faith, they just released some documents to us this afternoon while we were preparing to come here.
“We have done all that we needed to do. We have written letters, we have engaged in persuasion and have appealed to those we needed to speak with.
“This a proceeding that is time-bound. We have paid for these documents, and yet INEC had refused to give them to us. Under the Electoral Act, INEC cannot refuse to provide documents that have been applied for and duly paid for.
“It appears that INEC is deliberately frustrating us. We are being horsewhipped. We feel it is the court that we can cry to,” Okutepa said.
Mahmoud denied receiving any letter from Okutepa. He expressed surprise at his colleague’s claim and wondered why the petitioners’ lawyers were blaming his client.
He admitted that the leader of the petitioners’ legal team, Livy Uzoukwu (SAN) wrote him on the issue and that he replied.
He said INEC was not unwilling to make documents available and was not evading subpoenas, noting that the commission has responded to subpoenas and provided volumes of documents to the petitioners and in other cases.
Mahmoud said there are procedures in INEC that the petitioners were not willing to comply with, adding that if they cannot abide by existing procedures, “they cannot blame INEC”.
“I don’t think this practice is fair. To talk of sabotage on the part of INEC is not fair. I am quite taken aback by what the petitioners’ lawyer is saying. We cannot sit here and listen to lamentation that is unfounded,” Mahmoud said.
Uzoukwu denied receiving any letter from Mahmoud, adding that he believed that INEC was frustrating his team.
“Through INEC’s conduct, this proceeding is frustrated today. If they are ready to give us documents, we are ready to come back tomorrow (today). They are holding us hostage.
“We want an order of this court to compel INEC to produce the documents that we requested,” Uzoukwu said.
Olanipekun promises to mediate
Presiding Justice Haruna Tsammani intervened and told the petitioners’ lawyers that they know what to do under the law where the court’s subpoena is ignored.
Uzoukwu and Okutepa noted that they were hamstrung in view of the time-sensitive nature of the case.
Other members of the panel, Justices Stephen Adah and Misiturat Bolaji-Yusuf appealed to lawyers in the case to cooperate with each other to ensure seamless proceedings by assisting each other where necessary.
They urged them to place the interest of the nation and the people before their individual considerations and the reputation of the country.
Counsel for President Bola Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettma, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), promised to mediate between the feuding lawyers.
“It is a storm in a teacup. We, as lawyers, will meet when the court rises and resolve this issue,” Olanipekun said.
Shortly after the court rose, leaders of the legal teams to parties in the case met briefly within the courtroom and agreed to straighten all roughened edges.
Cloud engineer testifies
Earlier, the petitioners called their seventh witness, Mpeh Clareta Ogar, who claimed to be a Cloud Engineer and Architect, adding that she works with Amazon Web Services (AWS) Incorporated.
AWS is one of the technology organisations whose services INEC utilised to save its data during the last election.
Although Ogar contested the House of Representatives seat in Yala/Ogoga Federal Constituency of Cross River State as an LP candidate in the last election and lost, she, however, attended court as a subpoenaed witness.
Lawyer to Obi/LP, Patrick Ikwueto (SAN), who led her in evidence, did not disclose that aspect of her. He only stressed that she is an employee of the AWS and a subpoenaed witness.
Ikwueto tendered through the witness, her written statement on oath, her resume, employment letter and six copies of what was described as reports showing the status of AWS’ servers in the 33 regions where the firm hosts its servers for its cloud services.
In view of the information that the witness’ statement and documents were served on the respondents a few minutes before the commencement of the court’s sitting, the witness was stood down for the respondents to cross-examine her today.
Atiku calls three witnesses
Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presented called three witnesses, who served as INEC’s ad-hoc staff and presiding officers.
Janet Turaki, Christopher Ardo and Victoria Sani testified as subpoenaed witnesses and said all the election processes went well in their various polling units, except the electronic transmission of the presidential election results.
Turaki, who said she served in Gombe State, said after the voting process, votes were duly sorted, counted and the results were entered into the appropriate result sheet, which she signed along with agents of political parties who were available.
She said she took photos of the signed result sheet with the BVAS machine and later submitted it at the Ward Collation Centre.
Ardo and Sani said they were also taught how to transmit results offline where there was no network. They, however, said they were not successful in their efforts to upload the results of the presidential election at their polling units.
Further hearing in the petition resumes at 9 am.
APM to proceed despite double nomination ruling
Meanwhile, the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) insisted on Monday proceeding with its case before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu at the last election.
The APM is querying the legality of the joint ticket of Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettma, arguing among others, that Shettma had a double nomination, which it claimed rendered the joint ticket invalid.
The PEPC on May 30 suspended proceedings in the matter to enable parties to obtain and study a judgment delivered on 26 judgment by the Supreme Court.
The highest court had dismissed a case by the PDP, in which the party sought to void the joint ticket of Tinubu and Shettma as presidential and vice presidential candidates of the APC in the last election.
The PDP had, in its case, claimed that Shettma violated the Electoral Act by being nominated twice for two different offices – Borno Central Senatorial District and Vice President, and prayed the court to disqualify Tinubu and Shettima.
The Supreme Court held among others, that Shettima was not nominated twice and that a political party lacked the locus standi to challenge the process adopted by another political in nominating its candidates.
Olanipekun, on May 30, drew the court’s attention to the Supreme Court judgment and argued that, in view of the apex court’s finding in the PDP case, there were no longer issues to be determined by the PEPC in the petition by the APM.
Lawyer to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) agreed with Olanipekun.
But, the petitioner’s lawyer, Shehu Abubakar denied knowledge of the judgment and sought time to be allowed to study it and decide what further steps to take.
When parties returned to court on Monday, a new lawyer, who represented the APM, G. A. Idiagbonya, said he got a copy of the judgment from Fagbemi.
“We have gone through the judgment and we are of the opinion that we can still proceed with the petition,” Idiagbonya said and prayed the court for an adjournment to a later date for trial.
He said the petitioner intends to call a witness but needed time to enable it to retrieve some documents from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), with which it planned to conduct its case.
Lawyers to the respondents, including Mahmoud, Olanipekun and Charles Uwensuyi-Edosomwan (SAN) for the APC did not object to Idiagbonya’s request.
Olanipekun said he has also read the judgment. He, however, insisted that the petitioner must be allowed to return the next day for trial, a request Idiagbonya objected to, insisting that he needed time to get the documents from INEC.
Justice Tsammani adjourned till tomorrow for trial.
