The Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, have accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of withholding necessary documents in their joint petition challenging the election victory of Bola Tinubu. During the hearing, the petitioners’ counsel, Jibrin Okutepa (SAN), informed the court about their difficulties in obtaining the required documents from INEC, despite multiple letters requesting them.
Okutepa expressed frustration with INEC’s actions, stating that the electoral body had only provided a few certified copies of I-ReV reports from select areas in Lagos. The petitioners claimed that INEC deliberately hindered the proceedings. INEC’s counsel, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), disagreed with the petitioners’ submissions and emphasized that there are proper procedures for obtaining documents from INEC.
The petitioners also presented their seventh witness, Mpeh Clarita Ogar, a cloud engineer and architect working with Amazon Web Services Incorporated. The witness testified that the health status reports of AWS cloud services in various regions indicated no technical glitches on February 25, 2023. Despite objections from INEC, the court admitted the documents as exhibits. The five-member panel of Justices of the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) led by Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned the hearing to June 20 for cross-examination of the witness and further proceedings.
