Godwin Tsa, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will today open its defence in the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, against the conduct of the February 23, 2019 presidential election.
The election was won by President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The commission will have only six days to defend the allegations contained in the said petition where 62 witnesses gave evidence against the credibility of the poll.
Atiku and PDP had closed their case last week. The five- man Presidential Election Petition Tribunal is led by Justice Mohammed Garba.
The petitioners who were dissatisfied with the results of the February 23, 2019 presidential election had on March 18, 2019, filed their petition to challenge President Buhari’s victory.
They had proposed to call 400 witnesses to prove their case, but were only able to call 62 as of Friday, which marked the last of the 10 days allotted to them to prove their case.
Their last star witness was Osita Chidoka, former Minister of Aviation, who was PDP’s collation agent at the National Collation Centre.
Chidoka was discharged from the witness box after he had been cross-examined by the lawyers representing the respondents, comprising Yunus Ustaz (SAN) for INEC, Dr Alex Izinyon (SAN) for Buhari, and Yakubu Maikyau (SAN) for the APC.
The tribunal subsequently adjourned till July 29 for the first respondent, INEC, to open its defence.
One of the major issues that will dominate the tribunal session is the controversy generated by the existence and usage of a server by INEC.
While Atiku and PDP are contending that the result of the election was downloaded into INEC server, both the commission, Buhari and APC vehemently denied the claim.
The petitioners had, in their petition stated that by figures obtained from the INEC’s server, they and not Buhari and the third respondent, the APC, won the presidential election held on February 23 this year.
The figures allegedly obtained from the server, indicated that Atiku scored 18, 356,732 votes as against that of Buhari, who scored 16, 741,430.
Atiku and the PDP also alleged that the INEC chairman “committed grave errors in the final collation exercise” for the election by “falsely crediting” some persons with political parties, including “Okotie Christopher, Reverend Dr. Onwubuya and Ojinika Jeff Chinze.”