International observer’s court side view of the bombshell witness – PW7 – in Nigeria’s 2023 election trial
By Emmanuel Ogebe
It was my first time observing Presidential trials in 16 years. My last one was the closest election to being overturned in Nigeria’s history – 4/3 split decision at the Supreme Court. The 2023 elections were just as bad so I figured it deserving of attention.
The PDP petition was heard first half of the day. Three witnesses from Gombe, Niger testified that elections went smoothly but they couldn’t upload the results. One witness testified that PDP won in her polling unit but they were unable to upload the real results online.
Maybe it was my jetlag but I wasn’t profoundly impacted by PDP’s case although the two female witnesses were clearly a hit with all counsel both for and against their evidence.
PDP finished for the day and the court went on a one-hour break before LP’s case. The justices are working extremely hard. They even wanted to take a 4th PDP witness but the lawyers said they would take him tomorrow.
I was quite taken by the collegiality in the court atmosphere. Indeed one of the justices commended the SANs for not browbeating the witnesses. Janet from Gombe and Victoria from Niger were two of the courageous ad hoc staff who came and spoke the truth about what happened. You just couldn’t but admire their articulateness and sincerity. The only man who testified was controversial in contrast.
Everything changed when LP’s case resumed at 2.30pm.
Their star witness was sitting right in front of me at the bar reserved seating. She looked out of place in a white blouse amidst a sea of lawyers in black robs.
READ ALSO: UPDATED: No INEC Server glitches on Election Day, Amazon tells PEPC
When she entered the dock, she initially looked like just another witness whom all the SANs had called their “daughters” in the running joke of the day.
When she announced her address as Maryland USA, and not London, Niger State like her predecessor, I immediately sensed that this was serious business for my fellow Diasporan to fly all the way to testify.
By the time she mentioned her employment with Amazon Cloud Services, there was a perceptible chill in the air.
Respondents’ counsel opposed the witness because they were just now served with “volumes” of “mysterious” documents. After hearing all their arguments, the court ruled in the interest of time that she must be heard today and can be recalled another day for cross examination. “She shall be called PW7,” presiding Justice Tsamani said.
Throughout the banter between the counsel, where politically incorrect jokes were made about taking her home, PW7 remained calm, cool and collected, smiling patiently. You had no clue the bombshell she was armed with.
Long story short, witness PW7 is an IT expert from Amazon in DC whose testimony is explosive – she tendered health status dashboard reports of 33 Amazon servers worldwide showing that there was no glitch anywhere on February 25, 2023!
The packed courtroom visibly gasped at the revelation.
This was different from 2019 where Atiku’s team brought in expert consultants to provide data only for INEC to deny that they even had a server thus squelching all the data PDP had hoped to convince the court of rigging.
This time, INEC has already touted its impressive costly new IREV portal but claimed it experienced “a glitch.” This time there was a server but it didn’t work was their claim.
PW7 Clarita Ogar tendered six reports to the Presidential Election Petition Court (PREPEC) showing that there was no “technical glitch” across all the 33 Amazon Web Services (AWS) servers on six continents on February 25, 2023.
Her additional exhibits to the court included a copy of her resume and an employment verification letter from Amazon Web Services Incorporated. Her report on the health status of the AWS cloud services dashboard showed that, there was no technical glitch on February 25, 2023 and covered a one year period inclusive of the Election Day.
When PW7 gracefully returned to her sit beside me, after the court stood her down for continuation the next day, I whispered, “I’m also from the DMV. Sorry for what you had to go through.” Depending on if she was an immigrant or US-born Nigerian America, the innuendos in the macho repartee of the senior counsel could have been off putting. While it is not unusual at the Nigerian bar, it would have been unwelcome in a US courtroom.
She smiled, her default setting coping mechanism with the nerve-wracking challenge of appearing in court abroad and bearing the burden of determining the presidency of a nation by your testimony.
After PW7, a serious courtroom battle broke out between LP lawyers and INEC over the latter’s refusal to accept service or produce needed exhibits. The fun and games were over and I suspected it was partly because of the bombshell dropped by PW7.
I was meant to only be here for one day but I want to see the conclusion of PW7’s testimony.
INEC clearly underestimated the digital age. They may play cockamamie games by withholding documentary evidence from the petitioners but PW7 just stunned them by showing she has a virtual report card of what happened or did not happen on February 25. June 19 (incidentally Juneteenth holiday in the US marking the day African Americans were informed that they had already been freed) may well be the final nail in the coffin of INEC’s fraudulent results.
The walls of accountability now exceed far beyond the physical country borders and Billionaire Amazon owner Jeff Bezos may have no clue the effect his product is having on the destiny of Africa’s most populous country.
- Veteran international human rights lawyer and prodemocracy advocate Emmanuel Ogebe’s first report on election litigation observer mission to Nigeria
