Welcome back to the PEPT live updates part 3….
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Read Part 2 #PEPTUpdates : Peter Obi/LP’s final address adoption (Part 2).
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Yusuf Ali (INEC) : In reaction to the Petitioners’ objection on documents, we filed a written address, filed on the 25th of July, 2023 in opposition. We adopt the arguments in the documents as our argument, especially as there was no further reply by the Petitioners.
L. O. Fagbemi SAN( APC) : In respect to this objection we have no processes filed.
Court: We will now go to the main addresses. Instead of 10 minutes, parties will be allowed 20 minutes each to address the court.
A B Mahmoud (INEC) : The 1st Respondent has filed the final Written address dated 14th of July, 2023. Along with that we also filed a list of Authority, also dated & filed 14th of July, 2023.
After we received the Petitioners Written address, we also filed on reply on Points of Law, filed 28th of July, 2023. We also filed a list of authorities on the same 28th of July, 2023. With respect these are the processes filed by the 1st Respondents. We adopt same as our arguments in this petition.
My Lord, for all the detailed arguments canvassed in our Written Address, we humbly submit that this petition is lacking in merit & should be dismissed by the court. I will seek your Lordship’s indulgence.
On page 15 of our Written address we set out the issues for determination. They are listed. I will only speak to two issues:
The first issue is issue No. B, has to do with the complaint by the petitioners of non-compliance with the Provisions of the electoral Act. The essence of the complaint is with technology introduced by the 1st Respondent, the rationale seems to be appreciated by the petitioners, however, the misunderstood the technologies.
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The BVaS was used for accreditation and transmitting of results. The IREV Portal is a result viewing portal. The evidence shows clearly that the 1st Respondent went to great lengths to ensure that this technology functioned as designed. The applications used on BVaS was developed in-house, tested for performance and vulnerability. The data were also hosted on Amazon web services and evidence shows it was the most advanced & secured web service provider in the world. The intention of the 1st Respondent was beyond doubts both by the petitioners & ourselves. The Petitioners have contrived in their mind the so called “electronic collation system” which was prescribed by the 1st Respondents, which they have brought no evidence to show. Although the petitioners consistently argued that the National Assembly & Presidential elections went on concurrently, but they never showed there was any electronic collation of results in the National Assembly or any other election. What was in place was the manual collation.
The second is in response by the glitch. This glitch was orchestrated by human beings to alter the results. The case put forward by the 1st Respondent is that the glitch didn’t occur by human effort but by the normal function. My submission was that if there was human interference on the machines, the petitioners ought to have showed it. If they failed, that argument fails. Also, the IREV portal was for public view and did not affect the results collation. It was only for trust. All the witnesses have agreed on this. All the arguments of AWS being faulty or not results in a no issue.
There has been arguments about 18,088 so called blurred polling unit results on IREV. My argument is that this goes to no issue as those blurred results did not in any way suggest that the original copies of the result sheets were also blurred. They have not tendered the original copies which are in the possession of their agents. That complaint of blurred results are simply for dramatization.
From the state of the evidence & from the state of all the pleadings before your lordships which interrupted the transmission for over 4 hours did not impact the results and there was no evidence that there was any manipulation of results.
Moving to the second point in relation to the 25%, I’ll first of all day that there’s no dispute as to facts, the only issue is in relation to the interpretation of the relevant aspect of the constitution in section 134, which says the candidate must score 25% in 2/3rd of the states and the FCT. Your lordships should not adopt an approach that will result in an absurdity, which the voters in FCT are ascribed superior positions than the other voters.
We hereby submit our arguments.
Wole Olanipekun: The 2nd & 3rd respondents filed their Final Written address on 14 July, 2023. Also on receipt of the process filed by the Petitioners, a reply on 21st July was filed. We also filed a list of additional authorities on 31st July, 2023. We adopt these processes in urging your Lordship to dismiss this petition. We will also argue anon that it is a gross abuse of processes of Court.
I will draw your Lordship’s attention to a process filed by the petitioners, that the petitioners have no Final Written Address. The Petitoners’ arguments is in response to The 2nd & 3rd Respondents are not acceptable and we seek my Lords to discountenance this document.
I will address a few areas; one is about non-compliance that the results were not uploaded in real time. Upload to IREV is not part of the collation process for the purpose of declaration of results as all collations are done physically at the respective polling units & collation centers were results are entered at the appropriate INEC locations. May I refer your Lordships to Exh X1, which is a judgment of a superior court given at the instant of the 2nd Petitioner that the court should declare that INEC should declare results electronically and judgment was given. The 2nd Petitioner (Labour Party) also went to a High Court in Lagos and obtained a contrary judgment. The court of Appeal squashed that judgment stating that exhibit X1 quashed that decision.
My Lords may we draw your attention to 137(1)(d) of the constitution. The issue does not arise at all. It says: “He is under a sentence of death…” It is a present tense! No that he was, but that he is presently under. May I draw your Lordships attention to sub section E, that he is sentenced in a period within 10 years. In primary school we were thought present tense and present participle. The second respondent is not under any fine!
The arguments in respect of the FCT, let me read the provisions of the constitution (134(2)) May I make this submission on vended needs that what the constitution is talking about is votes scored, not land mass & that was what the supreme courts emphasized in the case of Awolowo v Shagari. The 2nd respondent scored more than 1/4 of the votes scored and the FCT.
The 1st Petioner with all respect has no locus standi to question the 25% outcome of this decision as the constitution forbids him to contest in a re-election if such were to be the case.
Lastly, is the question of the 1st Petitioner breaching the Law. We tendered Exh RA 18 gave evidence that he was not a member of the Labour Party. You cannot benefit from your own wrong doing. There’s no connectivity between the petition and the reliefs and the parties. May I urge my Noble Lords to dismiss this petition and urge my Lordship to do hold on my bended knees.
To be continued…..
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