Presidential Petitions Court: INEC Officials Give Reasons for Denying Some Agents Copies of Results

 

The Presidential Polls Hearing, continued on the petition that the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, filed to challenge the outcome of the 2023 election, as three officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, mounted the witness box.

The three, in their separate testimonies before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, said they were appointed as Ad-hoc staff members of the electoral body, for the purpose of the general elections.

They told the court that as Presiding Officers, they conducted the presidential election at their various polling units and subsequently handed the results to the Ward Collation Officers.

While admitting that they were unable to electronically transmit the polling unit results in real time using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, device, the three witnesses, further explained why the Commission instructed them not to give final copies of election results that were tabulated in a Form EC8A, to some political party agents.

According to the witnesses, INEC, had during a training it organised for its ad-hoc staff members, prior to the presidential election that held on February 25, stressed that copies of the results should not be given to any agent of a political party that failed to sign the result sheet.

It will be recalled that all the Respondents in the petition for INEC, President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima and the All Progressives Congress, APC – had opposed the decision of the petitioners to produce five ad-hoc staff members of the electoral body that participated in the conduct of the presidential election, to testify as witnesses before the court.

Despite the objections, the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel of the court, gave the former Vice President, Atiku, the go ahead to produce the five witnesses. The court said it would reserve its ruling on the objections and deliver same at a later date. While two of the witnesses testified on Thursday, the remaining two gave their evidence on Friday.

In the meantime, all the Respondents challenged the admissibility of statements of all the witnesses, in evidence. They said they would advance reasons for the objections, in their final written address.

Counsel for the petitioners, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, urged the court to discountenance all the objections. The Justice Tsammani-led panel said it would rule on the objections before delivering its final judgement in the case.

The court adjourned further hearing on the case till Saturday June 10.