The Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC) has told the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) that there is no credible evidence backing the reports tendered by the presidential candidate of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, that he was shortchanged by 2.5 million votes in results of the presidential election declared by the electoral umpire.
Obi had tendered 18,088 blurred polling unit results at the tribunal, claiming that they were downloaded from the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IREV).
Obi, who had petitioned INEC, President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress, alleged that results from those polling units show that a total of 2,565,269 votes were not reflected in his score, aside from his claim of non-compliance with the Electoral Act 2022.
NEWS DIRECT reports that on March 1, INEC’s Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu announced Tinubu as the winner of the polls with 8,794,726 votes while Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi of the Labour Party were said to have scored 6,984,520 votes and 6,101,533 votes, respectively.
On June 15, Obi’s legal team led by Dr. Livy Uzoukwu SAN presented a professor of Mathematics at the Nnamdi Azikiwe University, Awka, Anambra, Eric Uwaduegwu Ofoedu, who testified before the tribunal that the 2023 poll was rigged in favour of President Tinubu with alleged connivance of INEC officials.
Ofoedu who said he specializes in numerical-functional analysis and data science, told the PEPC that when he compared the 18,088 blurred results with Form EC8As (polling unit results) given to Labour Party agents at the affected PUs, Obi was allegedly shortchanged by 2,565,269 votes.
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“I observed that, from the IREV portal, scores on Form EC8As of 39,546 polling units were inaccessible – contain uploads not connected with the Presidential Election.
“From the IREV portal, 18,088 polling units results were blurred. This number of PUs negatively impacted the votes of 2,565,269 accredited voters and 9,165,191 voters that collected their PVCS,” he said in his witness statement on oath.
But in their final written address dated July 14, INEC’s lead counsel, A.B. Mahmoud SAN, said Obi failed to provide credible evidence to back his claim.
Mahmoud maintained that Obi’s witness, having not tendered or demonstrated before the PEPC the polling unit results he used in writing his report, the court should discountenance it.
“Curiously, if the 18, 088 Polling Unit results as uploaded on iReV are blurred, what of the duplicate copies in the possession of the Petitioners’ Polling Agents?
“We submit that the totality of the testimony and evidence of the so-called experts (PWs 4, 7 and 8) called by the Petitioners are manifestly unreliable and cannot ground the incidents of non-compliance pleaded by the Petitioners.
“We submit that there is no credible evidence to prove that votes in those 18,088 polling units were suppressed, just because blurred results were allegedly uploaded on the iReV. The petitioners have only left the same to conjecture and speculation which never form part of the determination of the Court,” Mahmoud stated.
He urged the court to declare that LP polling agents’ copies did not form part of his report tendered before the Court and cannot be relied upon.
Meanwhile, the professor had told the PEPC during cross-examination that he thought Obi’s team had already tendered the said polling unit results as evidence.
Mahmoud maintained that “No attempt was in fact made by the Petitioners to present any of their Polling Agents’ copies to show any discrepancy since the blurred results were alleged to have been uploaded with a view to: Suppressing votes.”
He there asked the court to dismiss Obi’s petition, adding that INEC conducted the polls within the confines of the law.
