Three Presiding Officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Monday told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting in Abuja that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) failed to electronically transmit results of the presidential election to INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
The witnesses gave the narration in the case the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar, filed to nullify President Bola Tinubu’s election.
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.
The trio, who took turns to mount the box owing to witness summons that was served on them, narrated how the BVAS machines failed on February 25, which was the day the presidential election was held.
The witnesses said while they were able to transmit the results of the National Assembly election that was held on the same day, using the BVAS machines, their repeated efforts to electronically transmit results of the presidential election to the IReV portal failed.
The witnesses led in evidence-in-chief by a member of Atiku’s legal team, Mr. Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, told the court that “technical glitches” they experienced with the BVAS machines, frustrated their jobs on election day.
The trio 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.
Turaki, the first witness, explained that the accreditation of voters with the BVAS machine went successfully, adding that the electoral process became frustrating for her, at the point she wanted to upload the election results.
She stressed 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 her testimony, Sani 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.
In his own narration, 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.
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.
However, 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.