Peter Obi’s web engineer counters INEC’s claim over IReV glitches during presidential election

During the proceedings at the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja on Monday, a witness representing the Labour Party’s presidential candidate, Peter Obi, testified that there were no technical glitches on the INEC’s IReV portal that could justify the failure to upload the polling unit results in real time for the presidential election held on 25 February.

In a statement issued by INEC’s Commissioner for Voter Education, Festus Okoye, a day after the election, the commission had attributed the delay in real-time uploading of results to unexpected technical glitches, as outlined in the election guidelines.

Although voting had concluded in the majority of the over 176,000 polling units across Nigeria, the results remained unavailable on the INEC IReV portal even after 24 hours had passed since the conclusion of the polling.

Peter Obi filed a petition with the presidential election court challenging the victory of President Bola Tinubu from the All Progressives Congress (APC), citing the failure to upload the election results to the IReV portal as one of the breaches that affected the credibility of the contested election. He also alleged that INEC had manipulated the polls in favor of President Tinubu.

In contrast to the assertions made by the electoral commission, the seventh witness of Mr. Obi, Mpeh Ogar, presented evidence to the court on Monday indicating that the health report of the Amazon Web Services, which hosts the INEC IReV portal, showed no technical glitches on 25 February 2023.

Ms. Ogar, a cloud engineer and architect at Amazon Web Services Incorporated, was examined by Mr. Obi’s lawyer, Patrick Ikwueto, during the proceedings. She confirmed and reaffirmed the contents of her previously sworn witness statement, which was deposited at the court’s registry on 19 June.

Ms. Ogar, who was summoned as a witness, submitted copies of her resume, appointment letter at Amazon Web Services Incorporated, and six volumes of reports regarding the regions where Amazon Web Services hosts their servers.

However, objections were raised by INEC, APC, and Mr. Tinubu regarding the admissibility of the documents. Nevertheless, the five-member panel of the court, presided over by Haruna Tsammani, accepted and labeled the documents as exhibits.

Following the admission of the documents, the court adjourned the case until Tuesday to proceed with the cross-examination of Ms. Ogar.

Peter Obi accuses INEC of refusing to provide electoral documents

Once again, Mr. Obi has raised allegations against INEC, claiming that they have denied his legal team access to crucial electoral documents required to pursue his case against Mr. Tinubu’s victory in the election.

During the recent court session on Monday, Mr. Obi’s lawyer, Jibril Okutepa, addressed the court and expressed the team’s ongoing frustration in acquiring essential electoral documents that are necessary to substantiate their claims of electoral fraud against the respondents mentioned in the petition.

“This is to formally bring to the notice of the court the excruciating experience we are having from INEC,” Mr Okutepa, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN) lamented.

He said INEC released only a few documents to his team on Monday.

The lawyer representing Mr. Obi sought the intervention of the court in the ongoing dispute.

“We appeal to your Lordships for assistance as we have nowhere else to turn. It seems that INEC is deliberately obstructing the progress of the case,” Mr. Okutepa informed the court.

However, INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), disagreed with Mr. Okutepa’s statements.

Mr. Mahmoud stated that none of Mr. Obi’s lawyers discussed the issue with him on Monday.

“They did not follow the proper procedures. I am surprised by Okutepa’s claims. We cannot sit here and listen to baseless complaints,” Mr. Mahmoud said, emphasizing that there are specific procedures for obtaining documents from INEC.

Also Read: Election Petition: Peter Obi, Labour present maths professor, other witnesses at tribunal

During a previous hearing, Mr. Mahmoud informed the court that Mr. Obi had failed to pay the processing fees for the requested electoral documents.

In contrast, Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who is also challenging Mr. Tinubu’s victory, has paid over N6 million in fees for the electoral documents.

This information was recently disclosed to the court by Mr. Atiku’s lawyer, Chris Uche, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN).