The Presidential Election Petition Court has reserved judgement in the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, against the February 25 election victory of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani, reserved judgement to a date to be communicated to the parties.
Atiku, Nigeria’s Vice-President between May 1999 and May 2007, was physically present in court today (Tuesday).
The petitioners — PDP and Atiku as well as Labour Party (LP) and its flag bearer, Peter Obi — are praying for the nullification of Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 poll.
They are both praying to be named the winner of the election, or that a rerun to be conducted.
In their final arguments, counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Abubakar Mahmoud, said it would amount to absurdity for the Tribunal to accept the argument of Atiku that one must secure 25% votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) to emerge winner of a presidential election.
Citing Section 134 of the Constitution, Mahmoud said the FCT has no special status.
He added that it would amount to absurdity for residents of the FCT to be deemed as being more special than other Nigerians elsewhere who voted during the keenly contested election.
On Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing portal (IREV), Mahmoud argued that the evidence before the court showed that all the information generated by the BVAS in relation to transmission of results were stored in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) and it was the most secured and publicly available cloud service in the world.
He held that there was a test of vulnerability and application of the AWS.
He further held that INEC showed good intention to make the election credible as manifested by the evidence before the court.
Mahmoud submitted that the major plank of the petitioners’ case is non-compliance with the electoral act, regulations and guidelines.
On his part, the counsel for Tinubu and his vice, Kashim Shettima, Wole Olanikpekun, described the petitioners as meddlesome interloper.
He held that uploading of results to the IREV, either manually or electronically, played no role in the election process. He added that collation was physical and also manual.
He wondered why INEC said it was only four hours they had a delay, while their witness admitted that results were uploaded till March 1, 2023.
He pointed out that the burden shifts to INEC to explain the substantiality of the non-compliance.
He accused INEC of carrying out a total shutdown to create room for manipulation.
On the issue of FCT, he said they have sought to create an additional state. No one is endowed with the competence to add what has already been.
He urged the court to adopt the current trend and allow all the petitions which they clearly proved.
The five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani subsequently reserved judgement to a date that will be communicated to the parties.
Credit: Channels Television
