AIT broadcaster, APC disagree over transmission of result

The anchor of the Democracy Today program on AIT, Ijeoma Osamor on Friday, maintained that the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (Prof Mahmood Yakubu) did not declare that the results of the February 25 presidential elections will no longer be uploaded and transmitted in real-time.

Osamor disagreed with the counsel for the All Progressives Congress at the Presidential Election Petition Court where the Labour Party and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, are disputing the results of the presidential election.

One of the grounds raised by the petitioners in support of their prayers to invalidate the return of the president, Bola Tinubu was that the commission, specifically its chairman, reneged on his promise to upload the results sent to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System to the INEC Results Viewing portal in real-time.

So far, video evidence tendered before the PEPC by the petitioners has bordered around clips showing the INEC chairman at different times assuring Nigerians of the use of technology in the presidential election.

The court, again on Friday admitted in evidence another flash drive and played in the open court a clip of Mahmoud delivering a speech emphasising the deployment of BVAS and IReV for the elections.

The event was aired live on AIT’s Democracy Today program anchored by Osamor who was subpoenaed to appear before the court.

During cross-examination of the witness, counsel for the APC, Abiodun Owonikoko (SAN) asked the reporter if she was aware that a few days before the election, the INEC chairman made a press statement saying the election results will no longer be uploaded in real-time.

Owonikoko SAN raised the issue and cited that there was a publication by The Tribune on February 23 to that effect.

However, the reporter insisted that while covering the beat, she was present during the press briefing and at the collation center, particularly on the said day.

She said that Mahmoud did not make the statement.

However, she said while her news organisation was focused on live coverage of events and programmes, the newspaper publication could have been based on an interview with the reporter.

After the witness was discharged, the five-man panel of the court adjourned to Monday, June 19 for further hearing in the petition by LP and Obi.

Dino testifies

Meanwhile, the National Collation Agent of the Peoples Democratic Party in the February 25 presidential election, Dino Melaye, told the Presidential Election Petition Court that the result used to declare Bola Tinubu as the president by the electoral commission was fraudulent and wrongly computed.

Melaye testified as a star witness in the petition by the Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate in the election, Atiku Abubakar, seeking the nullification of Tinubu’s declaration as winner of the 2023 presidential election.

Led in evidence-in-chief by Atiku’s lead counsel, Chris Uche SAN, the witness said he refused to sign the final collated results so as not to be part of the fraud and malpractices that allegedly marred the collation process.

He said the results of the presidential election “were wrongly computed by INEC.”

“I didn’t endorse it, because I don’t endorse fraud,” he stated.

He also told the court that aside from himself, many agents of the PDP in the presidential election did not also sign the results at various levels.

While responding to questions from Tinubu’s lawyer, Akin Olujimi (SAN), the witness argued that “failure of transmission of what has been recorded is an infringement of the law.”

Besides, he argued that the election circle could not be said to have been completed without the electronic transmission of results from the polling units to the INEC results viewing portal.