INEC wiped out BVAS results of FCT – Atiku’s witness tells PEPT

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate on Thursday presented a digital forensic expert, Mr Hitler Nwala, who told the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, that the Independent National Electoral Commission(INEC), wiped off results of the February 25 presidential election.

Atiku and PDP had stated in their joint petition that data from the BVAS machines which were used for the accreditation of voters and uploading of polling unit results would establish their allegation that the presidential election was manipulated in favour of President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress (APC).

The subpoenaed witness who testified as the petitioners’ 26th witness (PW26) told the court that the delated results were contained in the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), machines, that were deployed for the conduct of the elections.

Led in evidence by Chief Chris Uche, SAN, Nwala told the court that he specifically inspected and conducted forensic analysis on 110 BVAS that were deployed for the conduct of the presidential election in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja.

It was his evidence before Justice Haruna Tsammani led the five-member panel that, upon his enquiry, the INEC maintained that it had to wipe off the information in the BVAS to be able to use them for the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections that were held on March 18.

However, during cross-examination, counsel to INEC, Mr Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, faulted the report of the witness, stressing that 110 BVAS devices used for the election, were not sufficient to establish that there was any irregularity on the part of the Commission.

Mahmoud argued that the sample size the witness relied on to write his report, was small adding that a total of 3, 263 BVAS devices, were deployed during the presidential election.

He contended that the sample the witness based his report on, represented only about 3.5 per cent of the total device the INEC deployed in FCT and 0.06 per cent of the total BVAS that was used for the presidential election, across the country.

Responding to the witness testimony, President Tinubu and the APC had through their legal team led by Wole Olanipekun, SAN, and Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, urged the court to reject the report of the witness which they said was laced with manifest errors.

But in urging the court to discountenance the position of the respondents, the petitioners’ counsel, Uche, SAN, described the evidence of the witness as very vital to the case of his clients “considering that it was the first that we had a technologically driven election in this country,” he added.

After his evidence in chief, the petitioners proceeded and tendered from the Bar, bundles of certified copies of INEC’s Forms EC8A from 20 Local Government Areas, LGAs, in Ogun State.

The documents were tendered through a member of Atiku’s legal team, Mr Eyitayo Jegede, SAN.

Other documents tendered in evidence by the petitioners, were certified copies of polling unit results (Form EC8A series) from 17 LGAs in Ondo state, 27 LGAs in Jigawa as well as from 20 LGAs in Rivers State.

INEC opposed the admissibility of the documents in evidence, saying it would give its reasons in its final written address.

Likewise, the other Respondents- President Tinubu and the APC- equally raised objections to the admittance of the electoral documents in evidence.

Regardless, the Justice Tsammani panel accepted the documents in evidence and marked them as Exhibits in the matter.