The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) began its defense against the petition of Peter Obi of the Labour Party and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP yesterday, 3rd June, 2023.

The veracity of the aphorism, “To steal the village drum could be easy but to beat it without being caught is the problem,” played out perfectly at the Tribunal.

The events in the court were clear signs of a confused INEC. INEC is seriously confused, it’s like a drowning man looking for what to grab to stay afloat.

Last week, in desperation and confusion, INEC restricted access to the iRev portal for FCT, an act which raised suspicion that INEC might be trying to shore up votes for Tinubu to attain the mandatory 25% votes.

Prior to this time, INEC had unwittingly and indirectly admitted while cross-examining a witness for Atiku, that for a candidate to be declared a winner, he must have scored 25% votes in FCT. That was an own goal by INEC.

Nevertheless, the confusion came to the fore yesterday when INEC announced to the tribunal that they intended to present three witnesses and that the one for the day was not in court! No tangible or cogent reason could be given by the learned silk. The confused SAN asked for an adjournment and the defense against Obi was adjourned to 4th July.

Then we moved to Atiku’s case. An obviously confused INEC presented only one witnessed in defense against Atiku and closed its defense! It was a thrilling killer against INEC!

The witness submitted that as at the time Yakubu announced Tinubu as the winner, only 31% of the results was uploaded to the iRev! Invariably, the remaining 69% was automatically irrelevant. I laughed in Spanish!

Interestingly, the witness further presented a document which showed that three days to elections, INEC announced that it would not transmit results directly from the polling units as against its previous position of transmitting results from the polling units.

Then I felt like cross examining the witness! And these are my questions;

1).Em, Mr INEC, did you at any time inform Nigerians before the elections that you were going to transmit the results in real-time?

2). Where you not expecting Nigerians, especially the parties to believe you?

3). When you made your purported announcement three days to the elections, where you also expecting Nigerians to believe you?

4). Did you make another announcement on the day of the elections that you are going to transmit results from the polling units as against your purported announcement three days earlier?

5). Did you transmit Senate and House of Representatives results?

6). Your previous announcement of transmitting results from the polling units in real-time, your purported announcement three days to elections that you will not transmit results directly from polling units to iRev, and your action of transmitting the results of the Senate and House of Representatives on the Election Day, which of these was the position of INEC?

7). The previous announcement which was widely circulated, the purported announcement suspending the transmission of results from polling units to iRev, and the transmission of results of the elections on the day of elections, which of these were you expecting Nigerians to believe?

8). Mr. INEC, I know you went to school, in fact, you’re a director. So my next question will not be out of place. Can you tell this honorable court the meaning of confusion?

9). I will be correct to conclude that your purported announcement three days to the elections suspending transmission of results from polling units to iRev in real-time, and still going ahead to transmit results, was targeted at the presidential results?

10). Mr. INEC, it is very to all that your purported announcement three days to the elections was premeditated to ventilate your plan to manipulate the presidential results, and that is the reason for the “glitches” affecting only the presidential results transmission.

1. Mr. INEC, since you went ahead to transmit results as against the content of the document in your hand, is the document still relevant to this matter since you, who made the document violated it?

My Lord, that would be all for the witness.

Obi is coming!

Barr. Ajibola Ekor Ubi,
Legal Adviser,
Labour Party,
Kuje.