The second witness at the Presidential Election Petition
Tribunal, Peter Uzioma Obi, on Monday, said it was wrong to say the results of
the February 23, 2019 presidential election were not transmitted
electronically.
Obi took the witness stand 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.
Obi, who said he functioned as Registration Area Technician
at a ward level in Rivers State during the election, said the Independent
National Electoral Commission trained him and others to transmit the results of
the poll.
Obi, who earlier adopted his witness statement on oath which
he deposed to on April 26, as his evidence-in-chief, said this while fielding
questions from INEC’s lawyer, Yunus Usman (SAN), under cross-examination. “You are not supposed to transmit results
because you are not a presiding officer,” Usman asked.
Responding, Obi said, “You are wrong sir. INEC trained us to
transmit results. I was not a presiding officer. I was not a polling agent. I
was a registration area technician appointed by INEC. I was trained by INEC.
Fielding questions from Buhari’s lawyer, Chief Wole
Olanipekun (SAN), he said he was not aware of the guidelines used by the INEC
for the presidential election, but added that there was a specific guidelines
booklet issued for his roles as a RATECH.
“I was a RATECH in charge of the use of card reader,” he
said. He said he was not aware of
Olanipekun’s claim that there was no designation in the INEC’s guidelines as
Registration Area Technician. He said he operated at the ward level with the
Local Government Technician and the State Technician as his superiors. He added
that he was not stationed at any polling unit during the election but visited
the ones where his attention was needed. He said he visited seven polling units
in the course of the election.
Fielding questions from APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN),
Obi said the lawyer was not entirely correct to say that it was the duty of the
Presiding Officer “to do accreditation, verification authentication, and
collation at the Poling Units.” The witness
said, “You are not entirely correct sir, because we were told at the training
that the Assistant Polling Officer 1, was in charge of accreditation.”
Fielding more questions, he said, “I did not serve as APO1
and I did not serve as the Presiding Officer.” He said he did not act on his
own, contrary to Fagbemi’s suggestion.
“I have a letter to show that I was shortlisted.”
