Three Presiding Officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday testified as witnesses in the case of a former Vice President and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, filed to nullify President Bola Tinubu’s election.
The trio described how the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, or BVAS, machines failed them on February 25, the day the presidential election was held. They had to take turns mounting the box because they had received witness summonses from the Presidential Election Petition Court, or PEPC, located in Abuja.
The witnesses claim that while they were successful in utilizing the BVAS devices to transfer the results of the National Assembly election that was held on the same day, their repeated attempts to electronically submit the results of the presidential election to INEC’s IReV portal were unsuccessful.
The three witnesses; Janet Nuhu Turaki, Christopher Bulus Ardo, and Victoria Sani, told the court that they conducted the presidential election as Presiding Officers, at Yobe, Bauchi, and Katsina states, respectively.
Led in evidence-in-chief by a member of Atiku’s legal team, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, the witnesses, told the court that ‘technical glitches’ they experienced with the BVAS machines, frustrated their jobs on election day.
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They told the court that the results of the Senate and the House of Representatives elections were transmitted seamlessly, insisting that the problem of technical hitch arose at the point of transmitting only the presidential poll results.
The first witness, Turaki, told the court that the accreditation of voters with the BVAS machine, went successfully, stressing that the electoral process became frustrating for her, at the point she wanted to upload the election results.
However, she told the court that she carefully collated the result of the presidential election in the polling unit she served and recorded the same in INEC’s form EC8A, after which she signed the document alongside agents of all the political parties.
In his own evidence, Ardo told the Court that he felt unfulfilled in his assignment with INEC on the election because he could not transmit the presidential election results as required by law.
Likewise, Sani, in her testimony, said she could not remember the candidate that won the presidential poll in Katsina state, though she also lamented her inability to transmit the election results with the BVAS device.
The witnesses said they had at the end of the presidential poll, submitted a report to INEC, wherein they enumerated the challenge they faced with the BVAS machines.
Meanwhile, all the Respondents in the matter challenged the admissibility of statements the witnesses deposed on oath before the court, as part of the proof of evidence in the matter.
While Mr Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, appeared for INEC, President Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress, APC, was represented by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, and Mr Charles Edosomwan, SAN, respectively.
The Justice Tsammani-led five-member panel of the court adjourned further hearing in the matter till Tuesday.