IReV: Web Engineer, Tinubu’s Legal Team Disagree On Alleged Amazon Server Glitches

President Bola Tinubu has, through his legal team, told the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja that Amazon Web Services (AWS) server is prone to glitches. But a cloud and web engineer from the firm disagreed.

AWS Incorporated hosts the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal which was deployed in the conduct of Nigeria’s general disputed elections in 2023.

AWS is a subsidiary of Amazon, an online store for assorted commodities with global patronage. An information technology management company, AWS provides on-demand cloud computing platforms to individuals, companies, and government agencies.

The presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, and the Labour Party’s Peter Obi, filed separate petitions to challenge the outcome of the poll.

They both accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of manipulating the results of the 25 February election to secure victory for Mr Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

INEC’s failure to upload the results in real-time as promised was one of the early reasons opposition parties and their supporters criticised the elections in the wake of the conclusion of the exercise.

The issue forms part of the grounds raised by Atiku and Mr Obi in challenging Mr Tinubu’s victory in the disputed poll.

The commission had tried to explain away the failure by blaming it on technical glitches suffered by the IReV portal as a result of network failure.

But the web engineer from AWS, Mpeh Ogar, brought by Mr Obi to testify in court on Monday, countered INEC’s claim.

Testifying before the five-member panel of the court headed by Haruna Tsammani, Ms Ogar said the IReV portal did not experience any technical hitches to justify INEC’s failure to upload real-time the polling unit results of the 25 February presidential election.

Tinubu cites instances of glitches on AWS server

Mr Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, while cross-examining Ms Ogar, asked the witness if she was aware that “In 2021, AWS experienced twenty-seven outages on its servers,” to which she responded “no.”

Mr Olanipekun, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), went on to reference a glitch experienced by MTN Momo-PSB (Payment Service Bank) on its server last year.

The Momo Payment Service Bank Limited is a fintech subsidiary of MTN Nigeria. The technical hitch led to erroneous transfers of the bank’s customers’ funds.

Upon further cross-examination, Ms Ogar, a cloud engineer and architect at Amazon Web Services Incorporated, said “It is highly unusual for glitches to occur for primary functions during production of AWS when it is available to end-users.”

She told the court that her reports of the 33 regions where Amazon Web Services hosts their servers “are available public information.”

The witness clarified that she was not at the court to testify as Amazon Web Services Incorporated official, but to “testify as an expert witness” regarding the technology that hosts INEC IReV.

Ms Ogar said she was a Labour Party candidate for the House of Representatives election in Cross River State. She admitted to losing the contest.

While being cross-examined by Lateef Fagbemi, APC’s lawyer, Ms Ogar said, “Nothing is impossible” regarding glitches during the deployment of AWS technology.

She earlier told the court at Tuesday’s proceedings that “glitches only happen during the testing stage of the (AWS) software.”

The court adjourned the suit until Wednesday for further hearing.

Meanwhile, Mr Obi is expected to close his case on Friday. Thereafter, Mr Tinubu, INEC and the APC will commence their defence in the suit.