On Tuesday, the expert witness for the Labour Party from Amazon Web Services Incorporated USA returned to the witness stand for her cross-examination, making it a contentious day at the Presidential Election Petitions Court.
The witness Clareta Ogar, who identified herself as a cloud engineer and cloud architect, had earlier told the court that there were no glitches on February 25, 2023, when the presidential election held that could have affected the e-transmission of results.
She was put through a series of questions that got the proceedings heated up at some point when the counsel for the respondents tried to establish what her link with the organization she claims she works for is. Reference was made to her appointment verification letter which bears the name Employee Resource Centre and not Amazon Web Services, AWS, Inc; and also that there is no identification card from the company confirming her as an employee.
An attempt by the Labour Party counsel to intervene by insisting the witness had responded appropriately led to a reprimand by the Justices who cautioned him for disrupting proceedings. The Presiding Justice said “You are going about this as if you are in parliament. You are a senior counsel Ikwueto, there are juniors behind you”. The next most senior member on the panel, Justice Stephen Adah said, “Please don’t interject if you don’t want us to take meaner action against you”
But Ikwueto insisted he only was trying to help the court, and the court directed the respondents to proceed with the cross-examination
In response to why the witness did not tender her identification card, she responded that AWS does not issue identification cards, and that all employment verifications from Amazon Web Services are issued by Employee Resource Centre of the company.
She also denied being in court as a representative of the company she works for and on the mandate of Amazon Web Services, but as an expert subpoenaed witness to speak as a cloud engineer.
This led to further questioning on how she got the report she submitted before the court, and she responded that they are public information posted on the AWS Amazon.
Asked whether the report she submitted is a product of Amazon, but she claimed ownership of it on the ground that she was the one that submitted it before the court
The court also noted, based on her admittance that the subpoena that compelled her appearance was not delivered to the company she works for, but to her in person
This led to a digging into the background of the witness, who confirmed that she is a member of the Labour Party and that she contested for a House of Reps election in her constituency in Cross River State, which she lost but denied allusions that she is a Labour Party activist
On further questioning, the witness confirmed that she had sued INEC after it failed to publish her name in the final list of candidates; and that her main complaint was that she could not upload her information on the INEC website due to network failure. She however refused to accept that network failure is a form of network glitch
The respondents’ counsel also read out information showing periods in which the Amazon cloud services suffered glitches globally on February 27, 2017. While the witness confirmed that the glitch actually occurred, she held on to the position that the health status report as at the day of the presidential election on February 25, 2023 showed there was no glitch on the infrastructure that hosted applications and accounts including that of INEC.
Also at the proceedings on Tuesday, the chairman of INEC, Prof Yakubu Mahmood responded to the subpoena served on him on May 30 and that of June 13, 2023, by producing some documents through two senior officials of the Commission.
The Deputy Director, Department of Certification and Complaints of INEC, Mrs Moronkeji Tairu tendered the documents contained in the subpoena dated May 30 issued on the INEC chairman.
She said, some of the documents required by the petitioners are not in the Commission and that some of the documents come from INEC’s offices across the states and that because of lack of logistics, those documents could not be produced as of Tuesday and added that, the Subpoena dated May 30 was served on the Commission on Monday.
While assuring that the rest documents would be made available within the week, the INEC official presented documents on INEC’s manual for election officers.
Lead counsel to the petitioners, Dr. Livy Uzoukwu (SAN) informed the court that INEC refused service of the Subpoena all the while and all efforts to serve the Commission proved abortive until Monday.
The court cautioned that Mr Uzoukwu’s continuous reference to his meeting with INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, could not be relied upon as a subsisting law which the court could regard as a legal compelling force.
The court highlighted that there is an existing legal process of applying for documents with clearly spelt punishment for refusing or obstructing the process but the Labour party counsels have not thoroughly followed the process but has continued to wrongly relied on the assurances made in person by Mr Yakubu.
The documents in question include the state collation sheets of the 36 states and Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
Also, the Deputy Director, ICT department of INEC, Dr. Lawrence Bayode also presented some documents contained in the June 16 subpoena issued on the INEC Chairman and informed the court that the rest of the documents are work in progress.
The five-member panel of Justices of the court, led by Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned further hearing in the petition till Wednesday, June 21.
Credit: The Nigeria Lawyer