The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, yesterday, 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 from its Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used for 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 the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Bola Tinubu.
The subpoenaed witness who testified as the petitioners 26th witness (PW26) told the court that the deleted results were contained in the BVAS machines deployed for the conduct of the election.
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 the Justice Haruna Tsammani-led 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 held on March 18.
However, during cross-examination, counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), faulted the report of the witness, saying the 110 BVAS devices used for the election, was not sufficient to establish irregularities on the part of the commission.
Mahmoud, argued that the size of the sample that the witness relied on was small, saying 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 percent of the total device that INEC deployed in FCT and 0.06 per cent of the total BVAS was used for the presidential election across the country.
Responding to the witness testimony, Bola Tinubu and the APC had through their legal council, Wole Olanipekun and Lateef Fagbemi, urged the court to reject the report of the witness as it was laced with manifest errors.
But in urging the court to discountenance the position of the respondents, the petitioners’ counsel described the evidence of the witness as vital to the case of his clients “considering that it was the first that we had a technologically driven election in this country.”
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, Eyitayo Jegede. 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.
The court adjourned the hearing of the petition. Going by the pre-hearing report, Atiku and the PDP were expected to close their case today.
PDP and Atiku had asked for three weeks to present their case which elapsed on Tuesday, but because they had lost three days, one being June 12 Democracy Day public holiday, the court extended their time by three days.
(SUN)
