At the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Ms. Ijeoma Osamor, a broadcast journalist with DAAR Communications Plc, gave a testimony on Friday.
Osamor, the host of "Democracy Today" on Africa Independent Television (AIT), was called as Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP)'s seventh witness (PW 7).
Obi and LP are the petitioners in the CA/PEPC/03/2023 petition contesting President Bola Tinubu's election to office.
The All Progressives Congress (APC), President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) are the respondents.
Osamor asserted that INEC chairman Prof. Mahmood Yakubu had stated that the results of the presidential election would be broadcast live during cross-examination by APC counsel Abiodun Owonikoko.
The fact that Yakubu broke his agreement to real-time upload the results received 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 president declared invalid.
The petitioners' video testimony before the PEPC mostly consisted of clips of the INEC chairman assuring Nigerians that technology would be used in the presidential election at various points in time.
A clip of Mahmoud giving a speech underlining the deployment of BVAS and IReV for the elections was played out of another flash drive that the court once more admitted as evidence.
Osamor responded that her news organisation focuses on live coverage of events and programmes when asked by Owonikoko if she was aware that Yakubu had stated in a press release a few days prior to the election that the results would no longer be uploaded in real-time.
Owonikoko referenced a report by The Tribune from February 23 that stated election results will no longer be broadcast in real time, but Osamor countered that the allegation may have been based on an interview the reporter had been given.
The Tribune published a piece on February 23 under the heading "We Won't Transmit Raw Figures of Election Results, INEC Chairman," according to The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN).
The Tribune reports that Yakubu made that statement during a meeting with the international election monitors who paid him a visit at the commission.
Osamor asserted, however, that she was present during the time period in question at all news conferences and at the collation centre, notably on the day in question, as she was covering the beat.
She asserted that Yakubu didn't make this claim.
The five-member panel, chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani, continued hearing the petition and cross-examining the witness until Monday.