Presidential Election Petition: Documents requested by Obi non-existent, INEC claims

Some of the documents that Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s (LP) presidential candidate for the 2023 election, asked to produce as exhibits in the Presidential Election Tribunal are missing.

On Tuesday, INEC made the announcement in front of the court in Abuja.

In a petition with the filing number CA/PEPC/03/2023, Mr. Obi and the Labour Party (LP) ask the court to overturn President Bola Tinubu’s election on February 25.

The All Progressives Congress (APC), INEC, and President Tinubu are named as respondents in the petition.

In testimony before the court, Lawrence Bayode, Deputy Director, ICT at INEC, stated that of the five documents Obi requested, two were missing and one was still under construction.

Loretta Ogah, an ICT cloud engineer and one of Mr. Obi’s witnesses, claimed that she ran for office in Cross River as a representative on the Labour Party platform but was unsuccessful.

Wole Olanipakun (SAN), the attorney for Messrs. Tinubu and Shettima, cross-examined Ogah.

The electoral umpire failed to put her name on its portal due to a network outage, she said in court, so she sued INEC after losing.

Ms. Ogah said during cross-examination by Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), attorney for the APC, that technical difficulties did not exist on the INEC website on February 25.

She said that because she was not an INEC employee, she was unaware of the password policy.

Justice Haruna Tsammani presided over the court, which postponed further proceedings until Wednesday.