CURRENT REPORTS BLOG: The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) conducted its proceedings on Tuesday, July 4th, 2023. CURRENT REPORTS BLOG post provides a concise summary of the key events that transpired during the live court session. Party appearances, document submissions, witness testimonies, and cross-examinations were the focal points of the day. Let’s delve into a brief overview of the proceedings.
Party Appearances
Representing the Labour Party (LP), Dr. Datti Ahmed was present, while Odunsanya Damilola George, Senior Legal Officer, appeared on behalf of the All Progressives Congress (APC). Dr. Livy Uzoukwu SAN and PIN Ikwueto SAN led the LP legal counsel team, overseeing the proceedings.
Document Submissions
AB Mahmood SAN, representing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), requested to tender five documents as part of the defense. However, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu SAN, LP’s lead counsel, objected to three out of the five documents. Despite the objections, the court admitted and tagged all five documents as evidence. Dr. Livy expressed the intention to tender additional documents provided by INEC in response to a subpoena, but the judge ruled against their submission as LP’s case was closed.
Witness Testimony and Cross-Examinations
Dr. Lawrence Bayode, INEC Deputy Director of ICT, was called to the witness stand. AB Mahmood conducted the examination-in-chief. Key highlights from the testimony included the witness’s 24-year tenure at INEC and the submission of a Witness Statement on Oath (WSOO) dated April 10th, 2023. LP objected to the WSOO, but the court admitted it as evidence.
Wole Olanipekun SAN, representing BAT/Shett, cross-examined the witness. Noteworthy points from the cross-examination include the acceptance that blurred documents downloaded from IREV would not affect the EC8A result forms. The witness also acknowledged that the images uploaded to iREV from form EC8As were irrelevant to result collation. Furthermore, the witness confirmed awareness of the introduction of e-Naira under President Buhari in 2021 and mentioned that the app was temporarily removed from the Google Play Store to resolve technical issues.
Lateef Fagbemi SAN, counsel for the APC, commenced the cross-examination. Highlights from this phase included the witness admitting that physical forms EC8As were used by INEC for result collation. The witness clarified that although glitches were experienced, they did not impact the collation of results. Additionally, the Cloud Trail was presented as evidence of the patches deployed on the e-transmission app.
PIN Ikwueto SAN, representing the Labour Party, conducted a cross-examination as well. Highlights from this interaction revealed that while the e-transmission app underwent testing, no performance and functionality tests were conducted. Reports of the testing were received by INEC and tendered by LP as evidence. When questioned about the vulnerability of the e-transmission server, the witness remained silent. However, the witness acknowledged that Amazon Web Service Cloud Trail contained event time, event source, event name, and the AWS region where it was hosted. The witness was unable to provide results of the APC on the CTCs of iREV results due to their blurred nature.
AB Mahmood (For INEC) re-examined the witness, focusing on the different tests conducted. The witness elucidated the meanings of functionality, vulnerability, and performance tests.
Conclusion:
Following the completion of INEC’s case, the next proceedings will involve BAT/Shett presenting their defense. The day’s proceedings
