Mpeh Clarita Ogar, a witness for the Labour Party (LP) candidate for president in the February 25 presidential election, admitted on Tuesday at the Presidential Election Petition Court that the Amazon Web Services Incorporation has not authorised her to testify in the petitions challenging the election.
Mrs Ogar is an architect and cloud engineer for the International Corporation.
She informed the judges that she was appearing in court in her individual capacity to provide testimony in the petition Peter Gregory Obi and his Labour Party filed to challenge the proclamation of Tinubu as the election’s victor.
Under cross-examination by counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), the witness, who was introduced in evidence by the petitioner’s attorney, Mr Patrick Ikwueto (SAN), stated to the court on Tuesday that she was in court in relation to the petition in her individual capacity rather than on behalf of her employer.
The witness said, “The Subpoena was sent to me, not to Amazon. It is untrue that I am a Labour Party activist and that I am here on behalf of Amazon. I am here as an expert witness.
Clarita Ogar stated that there were no technological issues on February 25, 2023, when the Presidential election was conducted in answer to a query from the counsel of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN).
The chairman of INEC, Prof. Yakubu Mahmood, also participated in the hearings on Tuesday. He replied to the subpoenas issued to him on May 30 and June 13, 2023, by providing certain papers via two senior Commission employees.
The records demanded by the subpoena imposed on the INEC chairman on May 30 were delivered by Ms Moronkeji Tairu, deputy director of INEC’s Department of Certification and Complaints.
She claimed that some of the petitioners’ requested documents were outside the Commission’s possession and that others came from INEC offices spread out across the states, making it logistically impossible to produce them as of Tuesday. She also stated that the Commission had been served with a subpoena dated May 30 on Monday.
The INEC official handed materials on the INEC handbook for election officials while promising that the other documents will be made accessible within the next week.
Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), the petitioners’ principal attorney, told the court that INEC has consistently resisted the subpoena service and that all attempts to serve the Commission had failed until Monday.
In addition to presenting some of the papers from the subpoena served on the INEC Chairman on June 16 to appear in court, Dr. Lawrence Bayode, deputy director of INEC’s IT department, told the judge that work was still being done on the other records.
A hearing on the petition was postponed to Wednesday, June 21, by the court’s justices, led by Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani.
