No fewer than five ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, are set to appear before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC as special witnesses in the petition against President Bola Tinubu.
A former Vice President and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, filed the petition to challenge the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
The INEC ad hoc staff, who participated in the conduct of the disputed presidential election results, are to testify against the All Progressive Congress, APC candidate in the last election.
Atiku, who came second in the presidential contest that held on February 25, had in the joint petition he filed with his party, alleged that the election was rigged in favour of Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress, APC.
The presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of installing a third-party device to “manipulate” results of the February 25 poll in favour of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Bola Tinubu.
Atiku lodged the allegation in a 66-page document filed before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting at the Court of Appeal in Abuja.
Vanguard reports that in the petition marked CA/PEPC/05/2023, Atiku and the PDP listed INEC as 1st respondent, APC as 2nd respondent and Tinubu as 3rd respondent.
According to Atiku, the said IT Consultant, Suleiman Farouk, ensured that the device was intermediated between the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) Portal, known as Device Management System (DMS).
He told the court that the DMS was the software that allowed INEC’s IT Security Consultant, Farouk, remotely control, monitor and filter data transmitted from the BVAS devices to the electronic collation system and the IReV platform.
He told the court that the DMS was the software that allowed INEC’s IT Security Consultant, Mr. Farouk, to remotely control, monitor and filter data transmitted from the BVAS devices to the electronic collation system and the IRev platform.
“The 1st Respondent, INEC, engaged an appointee of the 2nd Respondent (Tinubu) to man and oversee the sensitive ICT department of the 1st Respondent for the purpose of the election.“
”The petitioners contend and shall lead evidence to show that contrary to the original design of the BVAS machine to upload data directly to the electronic collation system and the IReV portal, the 1st Respondent contrived and installed an intervening third-party device (Device Management System) which, in its ordinary usage, is meant to secure and administer the 1st Respondent’s technological ecosystem for the elections but as it relates to the presidential election, was used to intercept the results, quarantine and warehouse same, and filter them before releasing same to the IReV portal.
“The 1st Respondent used the said Device Management System to manipulate the Election results in favour of the 2nd and 3rd Respondents.
“The petitioners state and shall lead expert evidence to show the critical components of the 1st Respondent’s Information and Communications Technology, ICT, including but not limited to the BVAS which is an Android Device manufactured by Emperor Technologies China and supplied to the 1st Respondent by Activate Nigeria Limited,” the petitioners added.
“Consequently, at the resumed proceedings in the petition yesterday, lead counsel for the petitioners, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, told the court that his clients had subpoenaed five INEC ad-hoc staff members that were part of the conduct of the election to appear as witnesses and to also tender sensitive materials in evidence. He added that of the five witnesses, three of them were in court.
However, immediately the first subpoenaed ad-hoc staff was called into the courtroom and he mounted the witness box, lead counsel for the INEC, Mr. Abubakar Mahmood, SAN, raised an objection.
INEC’s lawyer, Mahmood, SAN, told the court that he was only served with statement of the witnesses, few minutes before the proceedings commenced, insisting that he would need time to go through the documents to be able to effectively cross-examine the witnesses.
Besides, INEC’s lawyer said there was also the need for him to go back to the Commission to verify and confirm the identities of the witnesses so as to ascertain if they indeed served as ad-hoc staff during the election.
Both Chief Akin Olujinmi, SAN, who appeared for President Tinubu, as well as counsel for the APC, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, aligned themselves with the position of the INEC.
The respondents maintained that the would need time to study statements of the witnesses that was served on them by the petitioners.
Even though the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel initially opted for a 30 minutes stand down to allow the respondents to study the statements, it subsequently deferred further proceedings in the matter till Thursday to enable INEC’s counsel to conduct his internal enquiry.
