In a landmark decision, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has admitted the final report of the European Union Election Observer Mission, which raises concerns about the conduct and outcome of the 2023 presidential election that resulted in the victory of President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and other candidates. The report, submitted by the former Vice President and Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, has been admitted as an exhibit despite vehement objections from President Tinubu, the All Progressives Congress (APC), and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The European Union Election Observer Mission report criticizes the credibility, fairness, and transparency of the presidential election conducted by INEC. Among the contentious issues raised by the report is the fact that only 31 percent of the presidential election results were uploaded into INEC’s result viewing portal. Lawrence Bayode, INEC’s sole witness and Director of Information Technology (IT), tendered the report and confirmed that the presidential election results were not electronically collated due to the lack of an electronic collation system. Instead, the collation was done manually by the presiding officers of the electoral body.
Under cross-examination by Chris Uche (SAN), Atiku Abubakar’s lead counsel, Bayode admitted that not all presidential election results were uploaded into INEC’s result viewing center as of March 1, 2023, when Tinubu was declared the winner of the election. The witness cited a technical glitch as the reason for the incomplete uploading of the results but acknowledged that INEC did not report this glitch to Amazon Web Services (AWS).
During the cross-examination led by Wole Olanipekun (SAN), President Tinubu’s lead counsel, Bayode explained that the election results were based on Form EC8A and that data and network service were necessary for the upload of images captured by the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine. He stressed that the integrity of the election was not compromised, as party agents were present during the announcement of the results entered into Form EC8As.
Bayode’s testimony was further challenged by Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), the lead counsel to the APC, who questioned the impact of the glitches experienced on the election day. However, the witness maintained that these glitches did not affect the final results and the scores of the candidates.
With just one witness and four documents presented, INEC has concluded its defense in response to the petition filed by Atiku Abubakar against Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 presidential election. As the proceedings continue, President Tinubu has been ordered to open his defense on Tuesday, June 4, 2023, by the Presiding Justice of the Presidential Election Petition Court, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani.
