The
All Progressives Congress (APC) is lining up 27 witnesses to discredit a
petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential
candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who challenged the February 25, 2023, presidential
election of Bola Tinubu. The APC has charged the Court of Appeal in Abuja to
dismiss the PDP’s petition, and its proposed witnesses, who are all members of
the party, are expected to testify that the election that produced Tinubu as
the President-elect was conducted in accordance with the provisions of the
Electoral Act, 2022, and other laws. The APC contends that the declaration of
its presidential candidate as the winner of the election is proper and valid.
The
ruling party argues that there is no provision in the law that makes it
mandatory for presiding officers to electronically transmit or transfer results
from polling units to the collation system, nor is there any such requirement
for the presiding officer to use the BVAS to upload a scanned copy of the Form
EC8A to the INEC’s Result Viewing Portal (iRev) in real-time. The APC claims
that BVAS is not for electronic transmission but a transfer of documents and
can only be utilized to forward documentation to the INEC’s iRev but not in
real-time as it is not so. It further states that the INEC Regulations did not
specify real-time electronic transmission as claimed in the petition or any
time lag whatsoever within which the transmission must be done.
The
ruling party equally submits that the important document in the presidential
election is the polling unit results-Form EC8A signed by the Presiding Officer
and Party Agents, and it is the document used for the collation of results.
Each party is expected to have their copy of this as soon as elections are
concluded at the polling units.
The
election process, as established by INEC’s Regulation, is that on completion of
all the polling unit voting and results procedures, the Presiding Officer shall
transfer the result of the polling unit directly to the collation system as
prescribed by the Commission, use the BVAS to upload a scanned copy of the EC8A
(Form) to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), as prescribed by the
Commission, and take the BVAS and the original copy of each of the Forms in a
tamper-evident envelope to the Registration Area/Ward Collation Officer, in the
company of Security Agents. The Polling Agents may accompany the Presiding
Officer to the RA/Ward Collation Centre. There is no mention of real-time
transfer of documents in the regulations.
The
APC argues that the election validly took place in the polling units where
results were declared after sorting of ballots, counting of votes, and
recording of the same in the prescribed forms which were signed by the
presiding officers and party agents, including that of the Petitioners and
copies issued as prescribed by the Electoral Act, 2022.
In
its notice of preliminary objection filed by its lead counsel, Prince Lateef
Fagbemi, SAN, marked CA PEPC/A/05/2023, APC urged the tribunal to dismiss the
petition for lacking merit. The ruling party argues that the tribunal has no
jurisdiction to adjudicate on the petitioners’ allegation predicated on ground
(D) in paragraph 16 of the petition and the related paragraph 146, which lacks
necessary facts or particulars as required by paragraph 4 (1)(d) of the rules
of procedure for election petitions (1st Schedule to the Electoral Act 2022).
The
APC claims that the INEC utilized the technological device (BVAS) deployed for
the electronic transmission of the polling units’ results of the election, as
far as practicable, to complement the manual transfer of the primary election
results in
