Our reporter/ The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Tuesday closed its defence in the petition filed by the Labour Party after calling one witness at the Presidential Election Petitions Court.
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 admitted that some of the results were downloaded from INEC’s portal. He also insisted under cross-examination that the results of the February 25 presidential election released by the commission are authentic.
Lawyer to the Labour Party, Patrick Ikwueto disagreed, saying the results could not be authentic when they were largely unreadable.
INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN) also tendered some documents in evidence.
Under cross-examination, the witness said that even if blurred documents were downloaded from the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV), it would not affect the physical results as recorded in Forms EC8As which are not blurred.
According to Bayode, the images of Forms EC8A captured with BVAS and transmitted to IReV are not relevant for the collation of results.
He told the court that the glitch recorded during the presidential election did not affect the collation of the results.
Meanwhile, the Presidential Election Petitions Court has admitted as exhibits, the Chicago State University credentials of President Bola Tinubu, who formally opened his defence in a petition filed against his election victory by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Abubakar Atiku.
At the resumed hearing of the petition, the educational documents tendered to establish his attendance and graduation at the American university comprising the admission letter offered to Tinubu by the institution among others.
Through his lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun, Tinubu tendered his Chicago State University credentials and his American visa documents to prove that he visited the United States unhindered between 2011 and 2021.
The President, who tendered the documents to debunk allegations of criminality contained in the petition against him, also made available to the court all documents of the Nigeria Immigration Service (NIS) which cleared him for the US trips.
Also admitted as an exhibit by the court is the US Embassy letter of April 4, 2003, which is a response to a letter from the Nigeria Police Force dated February 3, 2003, which claimed that the embassy had no criminal records of Tinubu in the US.
The documents were admitted despite objections against their admissibility by the PDP and former Vice President Abubakar.
However, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) who are 1st and 3rd respondents in the petition did not object to the admission of all the documents.
Besides the educational records, the court further admitted an originating summons of a suit instituted at the Supreme Court by the Attorneys General of Adamawa, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Delta, Edo And Sokoto states challenging the educational background of Tinubu to stand for the 2023 presidential election.
Having laid the documentary evidence to establish its case, lawyers to the President asked for an adjournment to enable them to call oral witnesses.
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