The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has closed its defence in the petition filed by the Labour Party after calling one witness at the Presidential Election Petitions Court.
Channels TV report that, At the resumed hearing of the petition filed by the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi on Tuesday, the electoral umpire called one Lawrence Bayode, a Director in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Department of the Commission.
The witness acknowledged downloading some of the results from INEC’s portal. During cross-examination, he likewise affirmed the validity of the commission’s announcement of the presidential election results from February 25.
Channels TV report that, Patrick Ikwueto, an attorney for the Labour Party, disagreed, claiming that the results could not be legitimate given that they were entirely illegible.
Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), the attorney for INEC, also offered some documents as proof.
The witness stated during cross-examination that even if documents with blurry images were downloaded from the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV), the actual results as reported in Forms EC8As, which are not blurry, would not be affected.
Channels TV report that, The photos of Forms EC8A taken with BVAS and sent to IReV, in Bayode’s opinion, are irrelevant for the collation of results.
He testified before the court that the bug discovered before the presidential election had no impact on the results’ collation.
Wole Olanipekun (SAN), the attorney for President Bola Tinubu and Vice-President Kashim Shettima, stated that his clients would begin presenting their arguments in the case on Wednesday.
Lukundu (
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