Presidential Tribunal: Software Engineer Challenges INEC Technical Glitches Statement

A software engineer, Anthony Chinwo, appeared before the Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja on Thursday and was identified as the second witness fielded by the flagbearer of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, against the Independent National Electoral Commission, President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress, APC.

Led in evidence by Obi’s legal team, represented by P.I. Ekweto, SAN, Anthony Chinwo asked the court to adopt his statement on oath.

In his statement on oath before the court, he said from his knowledge of software engineering and computer operations that “the information or data generated or inputted in the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, whether operating online or offline, were transmitted to the INEC servers, including the virtual server hosted on the Amazon Web Services, AWS, Cloud Platform.”

He also deposed in his statement on oath that AWS is the world’s most comprehensive platform, which enables large enterprises and government agencies to “effectively and in real-time manage data”, thereby disputing the statement by INEC about technical glitches during the presidential election.

Under cross-examination, INEC lawyer A.B. Mahmoud, SAN, asked him if he was familiar with any of the applications on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.

He responded in the negative but noted that he was familiar with the backend server and the INEC Results Viewing Portal, IRev.

The witness was also asked if he believes that the Amazon Web Services, AWS, is the most secure provider of cloud services globally and that INEC engaged it for the purpose of securing the results

The witness agreed that the AWS was secured but explained that “it is not a fair conclusion” to conclude that INEC protected the actual results of the 2023 presidential poll.

“You are not a staff member of Amazon?” Mahmoud asked him.

“No, I am not,” Chinwo replied.

When the turn of Tinubu and Kashim Shettima’s lawyer, Yusuf Ali SAN, came, he asked the witness if he was still standing by his statement on oath.

“They are seventeen paragraphs, and I stand by them,” the witness replied.

When pressed further by Ali, the witness agreed that while the election is disputed, it is only INEC that prescribes the procedures for conducting elections in Nigeria.

APC lawyer Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, asked Chinwo to tell the court if it was his experience as an architect and software engineer that he used to write his statement on oath.

The witness said he wrote his statement on oath based on his knowledge as a software engineer as well as his investigation of the INEC Results Viewing Portal, IRev.

The witness went on to say that he leveraged the Application Programming Interface, or API, to collect and study all the publicly available INEC information on the internet relating to the IRev and the 2023 election.

But Fagbemi asked him why he did not put his profile on oath, to which he replied that it was intentional and for sensitive reasons.

The court subsequently discharged the witness from the witness dock.

Obi’s lawyer, P.I. Ekweto, then adopted his interrogatory application, which, among other things, wants INEC to answer certain relevant questions, including who restored the alleged “technical glitches” the electoral umpire said happened on election day.

He asked the court to grant his application in the interest of justice.

But INEC counsel, Oluwakemi Pinheiro SAN, urged the court to dismiss the application as a waste of time.

APC’s lawyer, Olanrewaji Akinsola, asked the court to dismiss the application.

Responding, the panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani reserved its ruling “for either tomorrow or the next day.”

Part of the question Obi’s team insists INEC must answer borders on the technological aspect of the poll.

“What time were the technological glitches fixed or repaired?

“What was the exact time of the occurrence of the technical glitch that prevented the e-transmission of the results of the presidential election on February 25, 2023?” the application partly reads.

Source: Newsrangers