Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi,
found themselves embroiled in a
contentious legal battle following the February
25 general elections. They accused the Independent National Electoral
Commission (INEC) of withholding crucial documents needed to support their
joint petition contesting the declaration of Bola Tinubu as the winner of the election.
The accusations were made during a hearing of the petition, where the
petitioners’ counsel, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), expressed their frustration with
INEC’s refusal to provide the requested documents despite several written
requests.
Okutepa informed the court that the electoral body had only
released a few documents to the petitioners on Monday afternoon. He emphasized
their strenuous efforts in persuading INEC through numerous letters but to no
avail. Faced with these challenges, they sought the intervention of the court.
The petitioners had managed to obtain a few copies of I-ReV reports, which were
certified by INEC on May 29, from select Local Government Areas in Lagos.
However, INEC had refused to make the documents readily available to the petitioners.
“We have continuously corresponded with INEC, including
a personal letter I wrote on May 20, outlining all the documents we
required,” Okutepa stated. He further revealed that INEC had rejected the
service of a subpoena from the court’s bailiff. Urgency was stressed since the
proceedings were time-bound, and the petitioners had already paid for the
documents they sought. Okutepa pleaded with the court, lamenting their lack of
options, and suggested that INEC’s actions appeared to deliberately frustrate
the proceedings.
In response, counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN),
disagreed with the submissions of the petitioners’ counsel. He claimed that
they had not discussed any issues with him prior to the start of the Monday
proceedings. Mahmoud argued that there was no reason to deny the Labour Party
the requested documents, as there were established procedures for obtaining
them from INEC. He expressed surprise at Okutepa’s complaints, stating,
“We can’t sit here and be hearing unfounded lamentations.”
Furthermore, Mahmoud asserted that he had already responded to the letter
written by the lead counsel to the petitioners, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN).
Before the argument concerning the documents ensued, the
petitioners called their 7th witness, Mpeh Clarita Ogar, a cloud engineer and
architect working with Amazon Web Services Incorporated. Led by Patrick Ikwueto
(SAN), counsel to the petitioners, the witness confirmed the accuracy of her
witness statement on oath, which was deposed on June 19 at the court’s registry.
Additionally, several documents were presented, including the witness’s resume,
an appointment letter from Amazon Web Services Incorporated, and six volumes of
reports detailing the 33 regions where the company hosted its servers.
Ikwueto pointed out that the report on the health status of
AWS cloud services in the relevant region indicated no technical glitches on
February 25, 2023. Despite INEC’s objections to their admissibility, the court
accepted the documents as exhibits. The case, marked CA/PEPC/03/2023, involved
respondents Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Following the proceedings, Justice Haruna Tsammani, leading a
five-member panel of Justices of the Presidential Election Petition Court
(PEPC) in Abuja, adjourned the hearing until Tuesday, June 20. The next session
would involve the cross-examination of the petitioners’ 7th witness and the
continuation of the proceedings.
