A witness of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and its candidate in the February 25, presidential election and former Vice President Atiku Abubakar’s told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), Mr. Hitler Nwanna, that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), deleted election results on all BVAS machines which the party and it’s candidate had inspected.
The PDP and Atiku are at the PEPC to challenge the declaration of Ahmed Bola Tinubu as winner of the election. The due were also joined by the Labour Party LP, and its candidate, Peter Obi in disputing the results of the election.
The PDP and Atiku Abubakar, called their 26th witness, Mr Nwanna, a digital forensic analyst, who appeared with a forensic report and a certificate of compliance, arising from the conduct of the February 25 Presidential Election informing the court that he could not inspect all the BVAS machines, as he worked on only 110.
In response, lawyer to the INEC, Abubakar Mahmood said that going by the 110 BVAS devices inspected by the witness, only 0.069% of the machines deployed for the election nationwide were inspected.
Mahmood further stated that INEC deployed 3,163 polling devices to 2,822 polling units in the FCT.
According to him, the witness inspected just 3.5% of the number of devices deployed, noting that the result of Mr Nwala’s forensic inspection wasn’t an accurate representation of the outcome of the election.
To verify the witness’ claims on deleting of results, INEC’s lawyer brought four BVAS devices for the witness to inspect. The witness however declined to this gesture, insisting it’s a move that amounts to tampering with evidence in a matter already before the Court.
The witness had referenced in his report that the forensic inspection of the BVAS machine and IReV report was pursuant to a court order urging INEC to allow inspection.
However, during cross examination, the witness noted that the said Court order wasn’t attached to his witness statement.
Led in evidence by the lead counsel to the PDP, Mr Chris Uche, SAN, he said that the machines inspected were only those from the Federal Capital Territory, FCT.
He also told the court that he didn’t know at what point the results were deleted on the machines.
Under cross-examination by counsel to the INEC, Mr Abubakar Mahmoud, the witness said that he attached a standard device used for such an exercise to the machine to arrive at his conclusion.
On whether he had the authority of the commission to attach an external device to the BVAS machine, the witness answered in the affirmative.
Mahmoud further asked the witness if he was aware that inspecting only 110 machines out of 3,163 that were deployed in the FCT amounted to only 3.4 per cent of the total number of BVAS deployed in the FCT and 0.06 per cent of BVAS deployed nationwide, and the witness told the court that he only compiled the report and didn’t take out time to calculate the percentages.
The INEC counsel attempted to give a BVAS machine to the witness to check if it was deleted as he had said in his report but Nwala said it is against the ethics of his profession to collect the BVAS machine in the open within the court for examination.
The witness also told the court that since all the devices had the same model and looked the same on the outside, he couldn’t tell if it was one of the ones he inspected by merely looking at it.
Counsel to the All Progressives Congress, APC, Prince Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, told the witness that neither he nor any of his team members signed the six-volume forensic report, but he insisted that he signed the report as well as the certificate of compliance.
Also, on his part, Counsel to Tinubu, Wole Olanipekun, SAN reminded the witness about a portion of his report where he noted that from his inspection of the machines, nothing was intrinsically wrong with them.
The witness said that he was not in Abuja and so he couldn’t have known if something went wrong with the machines on the day of the election.
After the witness was discharged, the petitioners went further to tender Forms EC8A series from 20 local government areas of Ogun, 17 local government areas of Ondo, 27 local government areas of Jigawa, and 20 local government areas of Rivers.
Following arguments and listening to all sides in the matter, the court decided that the PDP’s case be adjourned to tomorrow Friday for conclusion.
