By Stella Chima
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) began its defense against the petition of Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP yesterday, 3rd June, 2023.
The veracity of the aphorism, “To steal the village drum could be easy but to beat it without being caught is the problem,” played out perfectly at the Tribunal.
The events in the court were clear signs of a confused INEC. INEC is seriously confused, it’s like a drowning man looking for what to grab to stay afloat.
Last week, in desperation and confusion, INEC restricted access to the iRev portal for FCT, an act which raised suspicion that INEC might be trying to shore up votes for Tinubu to attain the mandatory 25% votes.
Prior to this time, INEC had unwittingly and indirectly admitted while cross-examining a witness for Atiku, that for a candidate to be declared a winner, he must have scored 25% votes in FCT. That was an own goal by INEC.
Nevertheless, the confusion came to the fore yesterday when INEC announced to the tribunal that they intended to present three witnesses and that the one for the day was not in court! No tangible or cogent reason could be given by the learned silk. The confused SAN asked for an adjournment and the defense against Obi was adjourned to 4th July.
Then we moved to Atiku’s case. An obviously confused INEC presented only one witnessed in defense against Atiku and closed its defense! It was a thrilling killer against INEC!
The witness submitted that as at the time Yakubu announced Tinubu as the winner, only 31% of the results were uploaded to the iRev! Invariably, the remaining 69% was automatically irrelevant. I laughed in Spanish!
Interestingly, the witness further presented a document which showed those three days to elections, INEC announced that it would not transmit results directly from the polling units as against its previous position of transmitting results from the polling units.
Then I felt like cross examining the witness! And these are my questions;
- Em, Mr. INEC, did you at any time inform Nigerians before the elections that you were going to transmit the results in real-time?
- Where you not expecting Nigerians, especially the parties to believe you?
- When you made your purported announcement three days to the elections, where you also expecting Nigerians to believe you?
- Did you make another announcement on the day of the elections that you are going to transmit results from the polling units as against your purported announcement three days earlier?
- Did you transmit Senate and House of Representatives results?
- Your previous announcement of transmitting results from the polling units in real-time, your purported announcement three days to elections that you will not transmit results directly from polling units to iRev, and your action of transmitting the results of the Senate and House of Representatives on the Election Day, which of these was the position of INEC?
- The previous announcement which was widely circulated, the purported announcement suspending the transmission of results from polling units to iRev, and the transmission of results of the elections on the day of elections, which of these were you expecting Nigerians to believe?
- Mr. INEC, I know you went to school, in fact, you’re a director. So my next question will not be out of place. Can you tell this honorable court the meaning of confusion?
- I will be correct to conclude that your purported announcement three days to the elections suspending transmission of results from polling units to iRev in real-time, and still going ahead to transmit results, was targeted at the presidential results?
- Mr. INEC, it is very to all that your purported announcement three days to the elections was premeditated to ventilate your plan to manipulate the presidential results, and that is the reason for the “glitches” affecting only the presidential results transmission.
- Mr. INEC, since you went ahead to transmit results as against the content of the document in your hand, is the document still relevant to this matter since you, who made the document violated it?
My Lord, that would be all for the witness.
INEC: My lord our witness is here today for cross examination.
SAN Okutepa: Witness step forward
Witness: my name is Uchechukwu
SAN OKutepa: Tell the court your profession
Witness: I am an IT expert
SAN OKutepa: INEC claimed they had a glitch during the presidential election
Witness: yes, glitch occurs every time even jamb is experiencing glitch as we speak now.
SAN OKutepa: what the nature of glitch that was observe in the presidential election.
Witness: let me ask Festus Okoye cox he didn’t tell me that one.
SAN Okutepa: Do you know every word you say on oath can be used against you and you can end on in jail.
Witness: Ah ah.. No INEC didn’t tell me that one oo, I no Dey do again. Make we laugh small. Good morning all.
The erudite senior lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN), leading Atiku’s legal team, is yet another reason why ethnicity must never blind us to competence:
He used the sole INEC witness that eventually showed up at the PEPC to tender yet another bombshell document today, this time: the final report of the European Union Election Observer Mission, which faulted both the conduct and outcome of the 2023 presidential election that produced Bola Tinubu.
INEC’s Director of Information Technology (IT), Dr. Lawrence Bayode was brought in to testify for INEC, and after admitting that only 31% of the election results had been uploaded before Mahmud Yakubu announced Bola Tinubu. Chris Uche was then invited to cross-examine the INEC witness, but he asked that APC and Tinubu should go first as they were co-respondents in the matter. APC and Tinubu lawyers objected and the five-member panel had to go into their Chambers before coming out to rule that APC and Tinubu should cross-examine the INEC witness before Atiku.
Chris Uche then asked for 20 minutes to cross-examine the witness, APC and Tinubu opposed, Court ruled in Atiku’s favour.
Chris Uche again asked that the INEC witness should be made to read some critical portions of the European Union’s final report on the presidential election, Tinubu, APC and INEC again opposed it but the judges again ruled in favour of Atiku and the relevant portions were read.
The INEC witness had told the court that there was a technical glitch that affected the uploading of the presidential election results but under Chris Uche’s cross-examination, he admitted the imaginary glitch was not reported to Amazon Web Services (AWS) by INEC.
With their only witness’ testimony destroyed in minutes and four documents tendered, INEC closed its defense in the petition filed by Atiku Abubakar and the PDP against the declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
Tinubu meanwhile has been ordered to open the defense of his rigged victory in the presidential election tomorrow (Tuesday, July 4, 2023) by the PEPC.
If the PEPC does what is right with the evidence as of today, Bola Tinubu will be the first President to be removed in Nigeria; Mahmud Yakubu will be the first INEC Chairman to go to jail for rigging and the worst outcome from all of it is a rerun of that spurious and fraudulent election INEC conducted.
So, there are NO LIMITS to the number of witnesses or documents that can be tendered by the Petitioner(s) or Respondents; but the number of witnesses and the documents must be stated in advance in the depositions before the court. This practice ensures that parties don’t spring surprises at each other.
But, of course, calling witnesses or filing subpoena on witnesses and/or tendering documents can be objected to by the other party and subject to admission or not by the Court.
For Instance, in this PEPT, PDP mentioned that they will call over 100 witnesses but ended up calling less than 50. LP mentioned about 50 but ended up calling less than 15
Now, this does not in any way undermine the ability of LP (or PDP) to prove their case to a balance of probability.
It only shows that they are satisfied with the evidence presented so far or time didn’t permit the presentation of the rest.
INEC indicated that they have 3 witnesses yesterday; the one that was penciled to testify couldn’t do so due to an emergency.
Not showing up may be as a result of many factors, which includes witnesses suddenly taking ill, inadequate witnesses preparations ( lawyers hold conferences with witnesses before hearings), self-incrimination, fear of public backlash, or deliberate tactics to hide facts that are adverse to the parties calling the witnesses
Will he show up today? Let’s See! Mahmood & All His Cohorts Ought to Be In Jail, Solitary Confinement! Well done, Chief Chris Uche (SAN) Atiku supporters salute you
EU Gave INEC N17.94 Billion to Conduct a Free, Fair & Credible Election
Their Report Indicates that the Election Did NOT Ensure a Well-Run Transparent and Inclusive Democratic Process
Can INEC Just Refund their Money Since They Didn’t Keep Their Part of The Deal? Aside the N17.94 billion from EU INEC Also Got N300 Billion From FG These are Aside Other Funds Obtained From US, Canada and Other Donors
(CONTRIBUTED)
