Bello
Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, the witness told the court that although the election was peaceful at his polling unit, INEC officials refused to upload the results to INEC Result Verification Portal, (IREV).
The election went well in my polling unit and the result was entered but we insisted that the result be uploaded on IREV, all efforts proved abortive.
There was no problem at the polling units, it was at the ward level that magic started happening, the witness said.
He also told the court that he visited about 30 out of the 4,720 polling units in Anambra.
Also while being crossexamined by Mr Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, counsel to the APC, the witness told the court that his major grouse with the election was that there was no realtime upload of results on IREV as was promised by the INEC chairman.
The witness also told Mr Akin Olujimi, SAN, counsel to President Bola Tinubu that Labour Party won the election in Anambra.
When the petitioner attempted to call witnesses subpoenaed from INEC, all the respondents objected on the grounds that they had just been served with the witness statements and they needed to peruse them.
The Chairman of the Court, Justice Haruna Tsammani thereafter adjourned proceedings until Thursday to allow the respondents study the witness statements of the subpoenaed witnesses for seamless crossexamination.
The respondents in the petition marked CA/PEPC/05/2023, are INEC, President Tinubu, and the APC.
Atiku and the PDP are before the court to challenge the outcome of the Feb. 25 presidential election on the grounds that it was invalid by reason of noncompliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.
The petitioners claim that President Tinubu was not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast during the election.
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The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), President Bola Tinubu, and the All Progressives Congress, (APC) on Wednesday in Abuja, opposed the appearance of subpoenaed witnesses of Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and the Peoples Democratic Party, (PDP) to testify.
The respondents appeared unsettled when the petitioners called the first subpoenaed witness saying they were not prepared to crossexamine the witness having been served the witness statement only on Wednesday.Advertisement
The respondents, through their counsel, objected to the taking of the evidence of the witness who was said to be an Ad hoc staff of INEC during the Feb. 25 presidential election.
Counsel to the petitioners, Mr.
Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, also said they were served with the witness statement on Thursday and needed time to peruse it for proper crossexamination.Advertisement
Attempts by Uche to insist that the witness be taken saying ordinarily, subpoenaed witness statements didnt have to be frontloaded were futile as the respondents insisted that they had to peruse the statements.
Uche pleaded with the court to take at least one of the subpoenaed witnesses saying there was nothing strange in the statement to warrant an adjournment.Advertisement
Following the respondents insistence, Uche urged the court to adjourn until Thursday for the three subpoenaed witnesses to give their testimony.
Earlier, the petitioners called their 11th witness, Mr.
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