Tinubu begins defence today against allegations of drug trafficking, vote rigging, et cetera
By Jeph Ajobaju, Chief Copy Editor
Bola Tinubu begins today his defence against a raft of allegations of his moral and legal unfitness for President, including drug trafficking and election rigging, filed by Peter Obi and his Labour Party (LP) at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
The PEPC on Tuesday ordered Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettima to open their defence today after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) abruptly closed its defence with only one witness, instead of the three it earlier promised to produce.
Tinubu’s lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun, SAN told the court his client is fully ready to begin his defence on July 5 with witnesses and documents to justify his victory at the ballot box, per Daily Post.
The witness, INEC IT Director Lawrence Bayode, told the court the INEC experienced glitches during the presidential election on February 25 but the glitches did not affect the conduct of the election, collation of results, and declaration of final results.
On the allegation of blurred result sheets on INEC portal, he insisted clear result sheets can be obtained on request by those who need them.
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INEC relied on form EC8As to announce results, says witness
Bayode, led in evidence by INEC counsel Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, tendered the cloud trail log report and certification, which the court admitted in evidence, according to reporting by Tribune.
Under cross-examination by Tinubu’s counsel Wole Olanipekun, SAN, the witness agreed the foundation of any election conducted by INEC is the results recorded in Form EC8As and that blurred results downloaded from INEC IReV will not affect the results recorded in Form EC8As.
Bayode also agreed with Olanipekun that elections are practically concluded at polling units when Presiding Officers input election results into Form EC8As, announce them openly to all parties and their agents, sign Form EC8As, and use the Biomodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine to capture the forms.
Answering questions from counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the witness said it was the physical results in Forms EC8As the INEC used to compute the results of the presidential election.
Bayode explained the glitches during the presidential election did not affect the collation of results, and if the information uploaded to IReV is unclear, physical results could be obtained to retrieve information.
Under cross-examination by counsel to the petitioners, Patrick Ikwueto, SAN, the witness agreed the e-transmission application was tested on February 4 before it was deployed for the presidential election.
Ikwueto tendered the report of the test as evidence. The INEC did not object to its admissibility, but Tinubu, Shettima, and the APC objected and promised to give reasons for the objection at the address stage.
