Court proceedings began at 2:48pm. Counsel appearances for the petitioners and respondents are being announced. SAN Ikweto will kickstart the proceedings for the petitioners today. He intends to call a witness “PWT” to give his testimony.
SAN Ikwueto has now requested for the witness, who is a software engineer to be sworn. SAN Ikwueto: Please tell the court your full name. Witness: Anthony Chinwo Court: Is he a star witness? San Ikwueto: He’s an ordinary witness
SAN Ikwueto: What do you do for a living Witness: I’m a software engineer as well as an architect SAN Ikwueto: You deposed and signed a witness oath. If you see a copy of it would you recognize it? Witness: Yes Witness goes ahead to identify the document shown to him
SAN Ikwueto: Do you wish to adopt that document as your statement? Witness: Yes INEC proceeds with cross examination. In your paragraph 10 of your witness statement, you said you read the relevant provisions of the electoral act, correct? Witness: Yes sir.
And the guidelines pertaining to the use of technology during the election. You did not play any role on election day on February 25th, 2023? Unfortunately. No sir You are not familiar with any of the applications of the bvas device as an individual, correct?
Mr Chinwo, the Amazon Web Services, AWS is the most secure provider of cloud services globally. Witness: Yes It is used by governments, corporate bodies and individuals that are most concerned about security. Witness: Yes, that’s correct.
That INEC deployed its computing applications on AWS was a clear indication that they were concerned about security. Is that a fair conclusion? Witness: No it’s not a fair conclusion Mr Chinwo, you are not a staff of Amazon? Witness: No I’m not.
2nd respondent begins cross examination Do you stand by all statements made by you? Yes, there are 17 of them and I stand by all of them
2nd Respondent: You agree that it was only INEC that prescribed the method for transmission of results of elections conducted Witness: Yes I agree, they provided the guidelines and it was everywhere on Twitter and other places
You are not in a postion to tell us the number of software that were deployed by INEC. Is that correct? Witness: I’m not an INEC staff. Did you vote? Witness: No
2nd Respondent: You want to know the happenings in hell, you ask the devil. You won’t to know the happenings in heaven, you ask the Angels. I rest my case. 3rd Respondent begins cross examination.
3rd Respondent begins cross examination. It was your knowledge and experience as a software engineer and architect that made you give this statement? Correct? Witness: Yes, as well as my findings from investigation of INEC’s public APIs for the IREV
3rd Respondent: I need a yes or no answer. In your witness deposition, you did not describe yourself as an architect. Witness: no I did not
Necessary or unnecessary, you also did not give your profile. Your name, school you went to, your qualifications, where you have worked. Witness: Those information are sensitive. That’s intentional.
The INEC materials which you said formed the basis of your opinion, what are they? Witness: I used publicly available APIs, application programming interface.
Judge: What are they? Witness: I used them to collect all the information available for the election, like polling unit result. I did so over a period of time.
Do you have those materials here in court? Witness: Can I provide context? I have them on my laptop. Counsel: It’s a yes or no question LP Counsel objects, says it’s a technical question. Respondent’s counsel flares up and says LP counsel should stop objecting.
Witness: it’s on my laptop, as well as on your phones, it’s Public. Your opinion is also based on the electoral act and the guidelines of the conduct of the election? Witness: Yes You know there are so many versions of the electoral act, which one did you use?
Witness: The electoral act of 2022, as well as the guidelines INEC provided which they talked about in Chatham house. You have told my lord you did not vote, do you then stand by paragraph 11 of your deposition? Yes I stand by it, although I don’t see a correlation.
Lp counsel: when you say you are a software engineer and architect, you don’t mean you are a building architect, but a software architect. 2nd, 3rd and 4th respondents stand up to object and say there is no ambiguity. LP counsel has now stepped down and discharged the witness.
After a long deliberation and objections on some motions put forward by the LP counsel, the judges requested for a 5 minute recess.
The court is now back in session, and the LP counsel is now seeking to tender forms EC40G, starting with Bayelsa state. INEC/APC/Tinubu/Shettima have objected to the admissibility of the documents and will provide their reasons during the final address.
The court has admitted the 4 bundles of forms EC40G for 4 LGAs in Bayelsa state to evidence. The court has adjourned the proceedings for LP and Peter Obi to 3pm tomorrow to give allowance for Jumaat prayers.
WE GO AGAIN TOMORROW …..
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