DAAR Communications Plc broadcast journalist Ms. Ijeoma Osamor gave a testimony before the Presidential Election Petition Court on Friday (PEPC).
Osamor, the host of “Democracy Today” on Africa Independent Television (AIT), was called as the seventh witness (PW 7) in the trial of Labour Party member Peter Obi (LP).
Obi and LP are the petitioners in the CA/PEPC/03/2023 petition contesting President Bola Tinubu’s election to office.
President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress are the respondents, together with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) (APC).
Osamor said that INEC chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu had stated that the presidential election results will be broadcast live during cross-examination by APC lawyer Abiodun Owonikoko.
The fact that Yakubu broke his promise to real-time upload the results sent to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal was one of the arguments made by the petitioners in support of their requests to have Bola Tinubu’s re-election as the president declared invalid.
The petitioners’ video testimony before the PEPC mostly consisted of footage of the INEC chairman promising Nigerians that technology will be used in the presidential election at various points in time.
A film of Mahmoud giving a speech emphasising the deployment of BVAS and IReV for the elections was played off of another flash drive that the court once again allowed as evidence.
When Owonikoko questioned Osamor about whether she was aware that Yakubu had announced in a press release a few days before to the election that the results would no longer be posted in real-time, Osamor said that her news organisation focuses on live coverage of events and programmes.
Owonikoko referenced a story by The Tribune from February 23 stating that real-time election results will no longer be broadcast, although Osamor argued that the claim may have been based on an interview the reporter had been given.
The Tribune published a piece on February 23 with the heading “We Won’t Send Raw Numbers of Election Results, INEC Chairman,” according to The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The Tribune reports that Yakubu made such a statement at a meeting with the foreign election monitors who paid him a visit at the commission.
Osamor asserted, however, that she was present throughout the time period in question at all news conferences and at the collation centre, notably on the day in question, since she was covering the beat.
She said that Yakubu didn’t make this claim.
The five-member panel, presided over by Judge Haruna Tsammani, continued hearing the petition and conducting the witness’s cross-examination until Monday.
