Presidential Election: INEC wiped out BVAS results, forensic expert says court
Mr. Hitler Nwala, a digital forensic specialist, testified before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, in Abuja on Thursday about how he discovered that the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, wiped out the results of the presidential election held on February 25.
Mr. Nwala took the stand as the 25th witness for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, who is contesting President Bola Tinubu of the governing All Progressives Congress, APC, as the winner of the presidential election.
The witness, who testified before the five-member panel chaired by Justice Haruna Tsammani, said that the erased results were stored in the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, equipment used to conduct the elections.
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Atiku and his party maintained that data from the BVAS machines, which were used for voter accreditation and polling unit results uploading, would prove their claim that the presidential election was rigged in Tinubu’s advantage.
Meanwhile, Mr. Nwala, who was led in evidence by lead counsel for the petitioners, Chief Chris Uche, SAN, stated that he was invited as a witness in the case by a subpoena.
He testified in court that he carefully reviewed and did forensic examination on 110 BVAS used in the conduct of the presidential election in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja.
Upon his inquiry, the electoral organisation stated that it had to erase the information in the BVAS in order to redeploy them for the March 18 Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections.
However, during cross-examination of the witness, INEC counsel, Mr. Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, criticised the witness’s findings, emphasising that 110 BVAS devices used in the poll were insufficient to demonstrate that the Commission committed any irregularities.
While arguing that the sample size used by the witness to produce his report was tiny, Mahmoud, SAN emphasised that a total of 3, 263 BVAS devices were deployed during the presidential election.
He contended that the sample on which the witness based his findings represented only roughly 3.5 percent of the total device deployed by INEC in the FCT and 0.06 percent of the total BVAS utilised for the presidential election across the country.
It will be remembered that INEC stated that it required to “re-configure” all of the BVAS machines used in the presidential election in order to utilise them in the next round of elections.
Both President Tinubu’s legal team, led by Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, and the APC’s legal team, led by Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, asked the court to reject the witness’ report, which they said was riddled with obvious flaws.
Nonetheless, the petitioners’ attorney, Uche, SAN, regarded the witness’ evidence as “extremely important” to his clients’ argument, “considering that it was the first time we had a technologically driven election in this country,” he said.
The petitioners produced bundles of certified copies of INEC’s Forms EC8A from 20 Local Government Areas, LGAs, in Ogun state from the Bar shortly after the witness was released by the court.
Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, a member of Atiku’s legal team, presented the documents.
Certified copies of polling unit results (Form EC8A series) from 17 LGAs in Ondo state, 27 LGAs in Jigawa, and 20 LGAs in Rivers state were also given as evidence by the petitioners.
INEC argued against the inclusion of the papers as evidence, stating that it will explain its reasoning in its final written address.
Similarly, the other Respondents–President Tinubu and the APC–opposed the admission of the electoral documents as evidence.
Despite the concerns, the Justice Tsammani panel admitted the documents as evidence and designated them as Exhibits in the case.
Following that, the court delayed its hearings until Friday to allow the petitioners to finish their case, following which the Respondents will begin their defence.
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