Presidential election was well conducted, Atikus witnesses tell court

Tinubu, Shettima, APC’s objection stalls video evidence by Obi, LP

The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) yesterday heard from three witnesses called by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, and the party that the February 25 election went well in the states where they served as election officials.

Grace Ajagbonna, Abidemi Joseph and Obosa Edosa told the court that they were engaged as ad-hoc staff by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and served as Presiding Officers in Kogi, Niger and Edo states.

Ajagbonna, Joseph and Edosa said the whole election process went well where they served and that they complied with all the rules and regulations governing the election.

Led in evidence by petitioners’ lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN), Ajagbonna – the 14th witness of the petitioners – adopted her written statement, which was admitted by the court despite objection to its admissibility by counsel to the respondents.

Under cross-examination by counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), Ajagbonna said she accredited voters, using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device, and complied with all the instructions issued by INEC to ad hoc staff during their training.

She said: “The accreditation process went well. The voting process also went well. I collated the results and recorded them in Form EC8A by myself. I signed and the party agents also signed.

“At the end of the whole exercise, I took the Form EC8A to the Ward Collation Centre and submitted it to the Ward Collation Officer.”

Ajagbonna said all other aspects of the election process also went smoothly except the transmission of the presidential election result.

“My Lord, to be sincere, I was not happy. I was not happy that I was not able to transmit the result of the presidential election. Everything else went peacefully. The election went well,” the witness said.

Asked if she wrote her statement herself, she answered in the affirmative, although she was unable to explain what she meant by the word “simultaneously.”

She had claimed in her written statement that she tried uploading the Form EC8A and election results “simultaneously but I was unsuccessful.”

Asked by Mahmoud what she meant by trying to upload Form EC8A and result simultaneously, since both referred to the same item, witness said she meant “continuously or one after the other.”

Under cross examination by Yusuf Ali (SAN) lawyer to President Bola Tinubu, Ajagbonna said all the party agents signed the Form EC8A before she took the picture with the BVAS device and later submitted it at the Ward Collation Centre.

While being cross-examined by lawyer to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Ajagbonna said by their training, no election official or party agent was expected to leave his/her duty post during the election.

Her words:”By our training, nobody else is allowed at the polling unit except the presiding officer, collation officer, party agents, security officials and the voters.

“A collation officer or agent and others who were assigned roles are expected to stay at their duty posts during the election; not moving about.”

Joseph gave similar evidence, but said under cross examination by Ali that they were taught during training not to compel any party agent to sign result sheets, adding that the choice to sign or decline was that of the party agents to make.

Edosa said the election process went well but for her inability to upload the result at her polling unit.

She said: ”I did the accreditation using the BVAS machine. The process of accreditation went very well. Voting went very well too. We sorted and counted the votes and recorded the scores in the Form EC8A.

“I entered the figures manually. After that, the party agents and I signed the Form EC8A. I tried to upload the result using the BVAS machine, but it failed.

“What I was to upload was the image of the Form EC8A, which I had filled manually. Form EC8A is the result sheet.

“At the end of everything, I took the Form EC8A to the Ward Collation Centre and submitted it to the Ward Collation Officer. Besides the transmission, the other processes went very well.”

Under cross examination by Olujinmi, Edosa, like the other previous witnesses, said it was their first time using the BVAS device since their pre-assignment training by INEC.

At the conclusion of Edosa’s testimony, Uche applied for adjournment, which lawyers to the respondents supported.

The court subsequently adjourned further hearing till 10 am today.

The presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP) Mr. Peter Obi and his party later resumed the presentation of their case, calling an employee of Channels Television, Lucky Obewho-Isawode, whose company was subpoenaed to tender video evidence of their report of two press conferences addressed by INEC Chairman, Prof. Yakubu Mahmood and National Commissioner, Festus Okoye.

Petitioners’ lawyer, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), tendered the video recordings brought by the witness, which were stored in two flash drives.

Kemi Pinheiro (SAN) for INEC, Akin Olujinmi (SAN) for Tinubu and Vice President Kashim Shettma, and Afolabi Fashanu (SAN) for the APC objected to the tendering of the items and the witness’ statement.

They argued that the items were not front-loaded as required by the 2022 Electoral Act.

The court however admitted them, promising to rule on the respondents’ objection when giving its judgment.

Proceedings were however stalled when Olujinmi and Solomon Umoh (SAN) who took over from Fashanu objected to the playing of the videos in court.

They argued that it amounted to an ambush and denial of fair hearing when they were not served with the videos before now to enable them watch them and prepare for cross examination.

Olujinmi and Umoh said they were entitled to being allowed to preview the videos before being played in court.

Okutepa argued otherwise, insisting that there was no law that mandated his clients to serve on the respondents before hearing, video evidence produced by a subpoenaed witness.

On that note, the court adjourned to Saturday at 2pm.

Meanwhile, the hearing in the petition by the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) could not continue yesterday owing to the inability of the parties in the litigation to access the judgment given by the Supreme Court on Shettima’s ‘double nomination’.

The court had, on May 30, halted proceedings on the petition upon being informed about the May 26 judgment dismissing a case by the PDP in which the party sought to void the joint ticket of Tinubu and Shettima as presidential and vice presidential candidates of the APC in the last election.

The PDP had claimed that Shettima violated the Electoral Act by allowing himself to be nominated twice for two different offices – Borno Central Senatorial District and Vice President.

The PEPC ordered the parties to study the Supreme Court judgment and report to court on its effect on the APM petition, which raised the same issue as in the PDP case.

When the case was mentioned on June 2, Yakubu Maikasua (SAN) for the APM, told the court that his client was yet to access a certified true copy (CTC) of the judgment to enable it take a position on its effect on the status of their petition.

Lawyers to other parties, including Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) for the APC, also confirmed the development, following which Maikasua applied that the case be further adjourned till June 9.

At the mention of the case yesterday, Maikasua said the situation remained the same as the Supreme Court had not made the judgment available. He prayed the court for a new date to enable his client open its case.

Mahmoud for INEC, Fagbemi for APC, Olujinmi for Tinubu and Shettma, and Yomi Aliyu (SAN) for Kabir Masari (the APC placeholder) did not oppose the request by Maikasua.

They expressed hope that the judgment would be available before the next date.

The court adjourned the petition to June 19.