PEPT: BVAS Developed “System Error” After Transmitting N’Assembly Results – INEC Ad-hoc Staff

Two ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Friday Egwuma and Grace Timothy, Thursday, told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) failed to transmit the results of the election after the collation.

They admitted that the BVAS machine allocated to them developed system error after the results of the Senate and House of Representatives aspects of the poll were freely transmitted.

They further explained that they had to resort to other means of getting the results when it became clear that the BVAS machines would not help them.

Both Eguma and Timothy were subpoenaed witnesses of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, in the February 25 election.

In their joint petition before the PEPC, Atiku and PDP accused INEC of installing a third-party device to “manipulate” results of the February 25 poll in favour of ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Bola Tinubu.

While Egwuma was a Presiding Officer in a polling unit in Abia State, Timothy served INEC in Plateau State.

Apart from the failure of the BVAS machines to transmit the presidential election results, the two witnesses who were led in evidence by counsel to the petitioners, Chief Chris Uche, admitted that voting went smoothly in their respective places of work.

However, under cross-examination by Mr. Abubakar Mahmud, who stood for INEC, Egwuma explained that he resorted to an offline system in place of the BVAS machines.

But in her own testimony, Timothy told the Court that the greatest challenge she experienced during the election was the uploading of the presidential election results into the INEC Results Viewing (IRev) portal.