Supreme Court Sets To Hear Atiku’s Appeal Against Tinubu October 23
The Supreme Court has scheduled a hearing for Monday, October 23, regarding the appeal filed by Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, the presidential candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the 2023 election, against the election of President Bola Tinubu. It’s worth noting that on September 19, the PDP candidate lodged a 35-ground appeal challenging the verdict of the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPC) that upheld Tinubu’s victory. Earlier, a five-member panel led by Justice Hassan Tsammani had, on September 6, dismissed the petitions filed by Atiku and his Labour Party counterpart, Peter Obi, citing a lack of merit. Additionally, the former Vice President sought the Supreme Court’s permission to submit fresh evidence obtained from Chicago State University, furthering his claims of discrepancies and forgery in President Tinubu’s academic records. Atiku maintains his stance, urging the apex court to remove Bola Tinubu from office.
Obi Beat Tinubu In 2023 Presidential Election, Babachir Lawal Insists
A former Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Dr David Babachir Lawal said in Abuja on Tuesday that the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, (LP) Peter Gregory Obi won the February 25 presidential election and not Bola Ahmed Tinubu as declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). According to Babachir, available factual data as aggregated from several independent sources indicated that Obi got the majority votes while Atiku came second in the election, adding that Bola Tinubu came a distant third in the number of votes scored. In a statement he issued on Tuesday, Babachir Lawal said “I have resisted the temptation to engage in the contemporary political discourse since the May, 2023 election faux pas. “I did this for two reasons; the first being that as an active player in the drama, I needed time to analyse and digest the data that led to the outcome(s) so I could arrive at an informed decision; the second, being that the rainy season had just set in and it was necessary that I focused my attention on my farms which are the mainstay of my livelihood. “The current topical issues for political discourse and inquiry are whether or not Bola Tinubu won the presidential election and/or that he was apriori qualified to participate in the election given his murky bio data as is now being publicly unveiled daily in an avalanche. “My answer to the first inquiry is that regardless of whatever INEC or Appeal Court said or did, Bola did not win the election. “Right from the start of the campaigns, Bola new knew he was not going to win the election in a free and fair contest so he decided to go by all means. “Available factual data as aggregated from several independent sources indicate that Obi got the majority votes while Atiku came second. Bola came a distant third in the number of votes scored. “My answer to the second inquiry is that given the now unfolding deluge of uncomplimentary information about who or what he actually is, ordinarily, sound ethics and morality should have convinced him to voluntarily excuse himself from participation in the election. “But this, notwithstanding, I believe he still has time and opportunity to save himself this public humiliation and embarrassment to his person, both locally and internationally by resigning so that he can give more attention to his health. “After all, no one knows about the truism of these severely embarrassing and humiliating exposures about his person than the man himself. “Leadership is all about integrity; sound pedigree, trustworthiness and the ability to unite and instil hope and confidence in the people one seeks to lead. In these qualities, most Nigerians are in total agreement that Bola has them in very very short supply indeed. “But now, six months down the line, the chicken has come home to roost as Nigerians have come to the realization that we have not got what we deserved politically. “Confusion and despondency are now all over the nation as no one trusts the government to do what it says it will do. No one trusts the leader; and no one trusts appointees who are appointed as rewards for their roles in the election or who had in the past helped him in his life. “Bola the President and his group are now in government and are in full control of Nigeria’s vast resources and opportunities. They are enjoying their offices while Nigerians languish in insecurity, poverty and hopelessness. “During the campaign, Bola mouthed some platitudes about competence; but we are so far yet to see it reflected in his political appointments. It seems more like he is rewarding people who supported him to get the Presidency at all cost. “This band of appointees that Bola is assembling into his government don’t care about Nigeria at all. “Fuel prices will continue to gallop upwards until only they can afford it; the Naira will continue to race downhill in a free-fall until only they can afford anything in the market; insecurity will continue its escalation until every community in the nation is consumed by it”, he said.
IReV Not An Election Result Collation System -INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says its results viewing portal is to enhance election transparency and not a result collation or transmission system. The INEC Director of ICT, Paul Omokore, gave the clarification in his presentation titled: “The role of BVAS, IReV for Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo Governorship elections” at a two-day capacity workshop for journalists on Monday in Akwanga, Nasarawa State. Omokore advised journalists and members of the public not to confuse uploading of PU results to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) with electronic transmission of results. He said that INEC Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is only used to upload pictures of PUs results on form EC8A to IReV, which does not translate to electronic transmission of results. “Form EC8A is the result that we collated at the PUs. We use BVAS to snap this form and upload the same thing to the IReV portal for public viewing. “This is not a collecting system. It does not tally a system. What it does is to snap the EC8A which is the result at the polling unit and upload the same to the public view. That is all. “I know that 70 per cent of the populace think that the others have collected the figures. No. “All what it does is snapping the EC8A that the presiding officers have collected all the scores of the parties, signed and stamped and then sends this same picture to the IReV for public viewing. That is all. So it is not a collecting system,” he said. Omokore said that from inception of elections in Nigeria, results were transmitted manually, from the PUs to the collation centres. He said that technology deployment had proven to be an effective tool in achieving free, fair and credible elections. He said that while challenges were eminent, INEC had put in extra efforts to ensure that they were mitigated. “The role of BVAS is to ensure one-person-one-vote. “The role of the IReV Portal is to improve the openness and credibility of our elections,” he said. Ezenwa Nwagwu, who is also the Chairman, Partners for Electoral Reform, in his lecture titled: “Ethical Dilemma in Election Reporting: Navigating Bias, Balance and Promoting Transparency” urged journalists to uphold accuracy reporting. He said that the core issues in election reporting are Independence, unbiased and accuracy report by the media. “Accurate and transparent report is the only cure for fake news, which is the responsibility of the media,” Nwagu said. He advised the media to always investigate reasons behind some news being presented to the media by people with biased minds on electoral process and balance it with what the provision of the laws.
Guber Elections: We’re Not Extending Deadline For Polling Agents, Says INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has told political parties that it has no plans to extend the October 10 deadline for uploading of the list of their agents for polling units and collation centres for the November 11 Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo governorship elections. Mr Sam Olumekun, INEC National Commissioner and the Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee said this in a statement on Sunday in Abuja. Olumekun said that with less than 72 hours to deadline, only 55 per cent of expected agents for polling units and collation centre had been uploaded on its portal by political parties for the governorship election. He advised parties yet to comply to do before the deadline.Olumekun said that INEC notified all parties of the opening of its online portal for the upload of the list of polling units and collation centre agents, which commenced on August 24. He added that the commission thereafter engaged party representatives on the methodology for a seamless process. Olumekun said that in spite of the notice and subsequent reminders, parties were yet to substantially comply by submitting the list of their agents. “For Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi, only 55 per cent of the expected total of 189,180 polling unit agents have been uploaded to the designated INEC Portal. “Specifically, 29,278 out of the expected 40,372 (72.5 per cent for Bayelsa; 51,681 out of 85,644 (60.3 per cent) for Imo, and 23,720 out of 63,144 (37.6 per cent) for Kogi State have been uploaded. “Similarly, only 25.1 per cent of the expected 15,804 Collation Agents in the three States have been uploaded: 1,246 (26.0 per cent) out of 4,806 for Bayelsa; 1,638 (27.3 per cent) out of 5,994 for Imo, and 1,095 (21.9 per cent) out of 5,004 for Kogi. “The commission hereby wishes to further remind political parties that the portal will automatically shut down at 12:00 midnight on Tuesday Oct. 10. “There shall be no extension. Consequently, all parties sponsoring candidates for the elections that are yet to upload the list of their agents should do so before the deadline for the exercise,” Olumekun said. On the online accreditation of journalists for the election, Olumekun said that late applications would not be entertained after the Oct. 22 deadline and there shall be no provision for manual accreditation. He said that so far 45 media organisations had applied for the online accreditation of journalists which commenced on Aug. 24 and shall close on Oct. 22. “The commission also wishes to use this medium to encourage all interested Media organisations to take advantage of the remaining window to apply on imap.inecnigeria.org before the deadline on Oct. 22,” he said. Olumekun expressed the commission’s dismay on the spate of insecurity and violence, including clashes among supporters of political parties and candidates in the forthcoming elections. He appealed to all political parties and candidates to avoid utterances and acts that might heat up the polity or jeopadise peaceful conduct of the election. “In our engagement with political parties, the commission has constantly called on parties to rein in their supporters from actions capable of jeopardising the peaceful conduct of elections in Nigeria. “INEC earnestly appeal to all Political Parties and candidates to avoid utterances and acts that may heat up the polity. “The commission will continue to closely monitor the situation and sustain its engagement with security agencies and stakeholders to ensure a peaceful conduct of elections in the three states,” he said.
Presidential Election: Tribunal strikes out Obi, LP’s claim of irregularities, corrupt practices
The ongoing Presidential Election Tribunal has struck out Mr. Peter Obi, and Labour Party’s allegations of irregularities and corrupt practices leveled against the election that produced Bola Ahmed Tinubu. The court ruling in the preliminary objection held that the affected paragraphs were “vague, imprecise, nebulous and failed to meet the requirements of pleadings”. The judgement posited that Mr Obi and his party failed to mention the number of lawful votes they scored and the number of the unlawful votes recorded by the electoral body. The ruling read by Justice Abba Mohammed, insisted that the petitioners failed to establish the polling units or wards were irregularities, corrupt practices and manipulation of results were carried out. Justice Mohammed explained that “averments” must not leave room for confusion or ambiguity, adding that the aim of pleadings is to avail respondents of the facts of the case so as to prepare adequately. Mohammed held that, “petitioners failed to specify polling units where anomalies occurred or where agents complained of alleged malpractices and irregularities. “According to the ruling in a case of alleged malpractices in over 500 polling units, it does not suffice for the petitioners to say some polling units or collation centers without being specific. “Averments must not be general but specific.” Further in the ruling, the panel noted the total of over 18, 000 polling units where the petitioners alleged that INEC uploaded “blurred results ” unto the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) Portals, not one polling units was cited. “They did not specify polling units where election results were not uploaded” or where scores attributed to them was reduced or added to Tinubu”. “They did not show the majority of votes they claimed they had scored “, the tribunal held, adding that petitioners only make generic allegations of irregularities and malpractices. Mohammed further faulted the petitioners for relying on a spreadsheet analysis, inspection results and experts reports, adding that such documents ought to be served on the respondents to enable them do their own analysis and respond accordingly. “The spreadsheet report, inspection results and experts reports were not served but only listed as documents to be relied on in adjudicating the petition”, the court held. “It is unimaginable that a petitioner will allege widespread rigging in 176,000 Polling units, over 8,000 wards, 774 LGAs, 36 States and FCT without stating the specific place where the alleged irregularities occur.” Consequent to the above, the tribunal strike out the affected paragraphs as requested by the petitioners. On Obi’s membership of LP as he was still a PDP member. The court overruled the respondents claims stating that Obi and LP certified the provisions of Obi being a member.
Tribunal: Fireworks resume July 3 as Atiku and Obi seek to dethrone Tinubu
The 2023 Presidential Elections may have come and gone, but the legal fireworks fanned by Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi continue to fiercely burn. Suffice it to say that it has been a topsy-turvy three weeks at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) as the aggrieved parties battled to drive home their case challenging the declaration of Ahmed Bola Tinubu as the winner of the said election. On May 8th, the presidential election petition kicked off with five petitions from different political parties which were later consolidated. In the buildup of the full-blown hearing of the petitions, there was mild drama as two aggrieved parties Action Alliance (AA) and the Action Peoples Party (APP) withdrew their petitions, during the pre-hearing sessions of the petitions. However, Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Alliance Peoples Movement (APM) continued with the quest to upturn the outcome of the presidential election. The petitioners were given three weeks to prove their case, after the pre-election reports were delivered on 23rd May 2023, as time allocated for hearing, calling of witnesses and cross-examinations were stated for easy conduct of proceedings. On July 23rd, Mr Obi and LP closed their case after calling 13 witnesses as against the 50 witnesses registered in their pre-hearing schedule, amongst which they tendered documents, and the total number of registered voters and Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) collected in 32 states in the lead up to the presidential polls to aid their case. All their witnesses who were party agents and INEC officials, submitted that accreditation of voters was seamless, but transmission of Presidential election results was difficult, adding that they were made to sign the forms EC8As under duress. According to the witnesses, all the Labour Party agents totalled 133,000 as against the 176,974 polling units across the country, and they insisted that Peter Obi should be declared winner because he had the most results which were not uploaded as promised by INEC. Peter Obi and the Labour Party also tendered a report through a subpoenaed witness, Claretta Ogar, who is a cloud engineer and architect and an employee of Amazon Web Services Incorporated, USA. According to the Star witness, the Amazon Web server that provided cloud services for INEC’s digital backbone for the presidential election did not experience any glitch that could have affected the e-transmission of results on February 25, 2023. The report specifically provides details on the health status of the Amazon Web server that provided cloud services for INEC’s digital backbone for the presidential election. The document, totaling six copies were admitted by the court amid objections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and the All Progressive Congress (APC). Also, two subpoenaed witnesses of the Labour Party and Peter Obi, contradicted each other on the powers and responsibilities of the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA, as related to the February 25, 2023 general elections. Chebuike Ngwoke, a digital cyber-security expert, commissioned to do a cyber-security and risk analysis of the election by the Labour Party, told the court that the International System for Standardization, ISO Certification, is expected to be issued by the National Information Technology Development Agency, NITDA and to the Independent National Electoral Commission in line with the 2007 Act that established it. However, another subpoenaed witness of Obi, Emmanuel Edet, a legal officer from NITDA contradicted the position that there was no provision in the NITDA Act that gave the agency that role when he was crossed examined by Wole Olanipekun, SAN, Counsel to Tinubu. On the part of Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), they had on the 21st of March filed their petitions challenging the emergence of President Bola Tinubu in the February 25 elections. Closing their case on Friday 23rd June, called a total of 27 witnesses as against 100 submitted in the pre-hearing schedule to prove their case, amongst other documents tendered. However, speaking to reporters, lead counsel to the Petitioners, Chief Chris Uche SAN, said that the documents tendered took the place of the remaining 73 witnesses. Some of the notable witnesses called were three Presiding Officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) who told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that the refusal of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to transmit the presidential election results on Election Day frustrated their jobs. The Officers, who were testifying on subpoena, admitted that the results of the Senate and the House of Representatives were transmitted unhindered and that the problems of technical glitches arose at the point of transmitting only the presidential poll results. The three witnesses are Janet Nuhu Turaki, Christopher Bulus Ardo and Victoria Sani who served as INEC’S Presiding Officers at Yobe, Bauchi and Katsina States, respectfully. Also among the testifiers was Hitler Uwala, who is a forensic Analyst and he tendered 7 volumes of reports based on the 110 BVAS machines inspected. Under the evidence in chief, Uwala told the court that the results contained in the 110 BVAS machines he inspected were deleted. However, while under cross-examination by the INEC counsel, he admitted that he was not in Abuja when the elections were conducted and that nothing was wrong with the BVAS machine when he inspected them. He added that he didn’t interview any of the election presiding officers and does not know if anything was wrong with the BVAs machine on Election Day. INEC further told the court that the 110 BVAS machines inspected in the Federal Capital Territory constitute only 3.5% out of the 3163 devices allocated to Abuja and less than 0.06% of the total number of BVAS deployed across Nigeria. To verify the witness’ claims on deleting of results, INEC’s lawyer brought four BVAS devices for the witness to inspect but he refused saying it was professionally wrong to do that as the figures might have been tampered with. Uwala added that he can’t identify the BVAs machine given to him as
INEC deleted results on 110 BVAS, Atiku’s witness tells Tribunal
A prosecution witness 26 (PW26) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Abubakar Atiku, Mr Hitler Nwala has told the Presidential Election Petition Court, (PEPC) that results on all the 110 BVAS machines he inspected were deleted. Testifying before the court, Nwala said that the machines inspected were only those from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). Led in evidence-in-chief by the lead counsel to Atiku, Chief Chris Uche SAN, the subpoenaed witness said that he was a Digital Forensic Analyst and that he didn’t know at what point the results were deleted it from the machines. Under cross examination by counsel to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, the witness said that he attached a standard device used for such an exercise to the machine to arrive at the conclusion. When asked if he had the authority of the commission to attach an external device to the BVAS machine, the witness answered in the affirmative. Mahmoud further asked the witness if he was aware that inspecting only 110 machines out of 3,163 that were deployed in the FCT amounted to only 3.4 per cent of the total number of BVAS deployed in the FCT and 0.06 per cent of BVAS deployed nationwide. In his defense, the expert witness said he only compiled the report and didn’t take out time to calculate the percentages. The INEC counsel attempted to give a BVAS machine to the witness to check if it was deleted as he had said in his report. The witness, however, said that it would be against the ethics of his profession to collect the BVAS machine in open court to check it. “It is professionally wrong to access a device that will be used as evidence in a court of competent jurisdiction because it will temper with the evidence. “We cannot access the device directly, what we do is to extract the evidence and take it for analysis.” Moreover, the witness told the court that since all the devices had the same model and look the same on the outside, he couldn’t tell if it was one of the ones he inspected my merely looking at it. On his part, counsel to the All Progressives Congress, (APC) Mr Lateef Fagbemi, SAN told the witness that neither he nor any of his team member signed the six volume forensic report. The witness, however, insisted that he signed the report as well as the certificate of compliance. On his part, counsel to President Bola Tinubu, Mr Wole Olanipekin, SAN confronted the witness with a portion of his report where he said that from his inspection of the machines, “nothing was intrinsically wrong with them”. “Were you in Abuja on the day of the presidential election? “If you were not in Abuja, how then can you know that there was nothing intrinsically wrong with the machines on the day of election?” The witness said that he was not in Abuja and so he couldn’t have known if something went wrong with the machines on the day of election. After the witness was discharged, the petitioners went further to tender Forms EC8A series from 20 local government areas of Ogun, 17 local government areas of Ondo, 27 local government areas of Jigawa and 20 local government areas of Rivers. The Chairman of the Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned hearing in the petition until Friday. Recall that going by the pre-hearing report, Atiku and the PDP are expected to close their case on Thursday, 22nd June (today), however a grace of one day was given. With the new development, the Prosecution will be closing their case on Friday, the 23rd, June.