Returning Officer Tells Tribunal, How They Transmitted Election Results to INEC Server
Adejuyitan Olalekan, a Presiding Officer during the February 23 presidential election, on Monday told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal in Abuja that he personally transmitted the results collated at his polling unit during the poll.
Olalekan was called to the witness stand as the petitioners’ third witness at the instance of the Peoples Democratic Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, who are by their petition challenging the victory of President Muhammadu Buhari and the All Progressives Congress.
He was led by the petitioners’ lead counsel, Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), to adopt his witness statement on oath as his evidence-in-chief, but was not asked to mention the state or the polling unit where he worked during the poll.
During cross-examination by Buhari’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun (SAN), Olalekan, who said he was a lecturer at African Community of Inquiry College of Education in Enugu State, insisted that he personally transmitted the collated results at his polling unit.
“I did it myself as the Presiding Officer. I transmitted through the code provided by INEC,” he said.
But when asked by INEC’s lawyer, Yunus Usman (SAN), Olalekan said he did not have the name or the number of the server.
When questioned by APC’s lawyer, Akin Olujinmi (SAN), the witness said, “Without the code, you cannot make any transmission of results”.
However, when asked if he attached the code with which he claimed to have transmitted the collated results to his witness statement on oath, he said he did not but had it on his phone.
While being cross-examined by Olanipekun, the witness maintained that all the voters at his polling units voted via card reader as the machine worked perfectly.
He also insisted that INEC did not direct Presiding Officers to allow voters who could not be authenticated by the card reader machine to vote manually with their picture captured.
He said, “No, we were not directed to allow people to vote manually.
“The card reader worked for every voter who came to my polling unit.”
