A witness of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of deliberately deleting election results from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines used during the February 25 presidential election in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).
The witness, Hitler Nwala, a digital forensic analyst, stated this before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), where he testified on behalf of the PDP on Thursday, June 22.
Nwala said that he meticulously examined 110 BVAS devices used during the presidential polls in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) and, according to him, the data in all the machines had been deleted.
Nwala considered it unnecessary to remove the FCT presidential poll result data, as no governorship election held there.
However, during the cross-examination of the witness, counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, challenged the credibility of the witness’ testimony.
Mahmoud contended that the witness’ examination of 110 BVAS devices did not constitute a sufficient sample size to substantiate the allegations against the Commission.
He pointed out that the witness’ report was based on approximately 3.5 per cent of the total number of BVAS used in the FCT, and 0.06 per cent of the total BVAS employed nationwide for the presidential poll.
Following the witness’s discharge, the petitioners presented electoral documents from four states as evidence.
The documents comprised certified true copies of polling unit results (form EC8A) from Ogun (20 LGAs), Ondo (17 LGAs), Jigawa (27 LGAs), and Rivers (20 LGAs).
The court adjourned proceedings to June 23 for further hearing.
INEC had declared Tinubu as the winner of the February 25 presidential election.
According to the Commission, Tinubu secured 8,794,726 votes, Abubakar had 6,984,520, while Obi polled 6,101,533.
Atiku and the PDP rejected the result and approached the tribunal with their petitions to challenge Tinubu’s victory.
In the petition, Atiku and the PDP said Tinubu’s election “is invalid by reason of non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022.”
Atiku also argued that INEC’s “failure to electronically transmit the election results in real-time” compromised the outcome of the presidential poll.
He added that the alleged substantial non-compliance with the law affected the result of the election, in that Tinubu “ought not to have been declared or returned as the winner of the election.”
Atiku further contended that INEC “wrongly returned” Mr Tinubu “as the winner of the election, allocating to him 8,794,726 votes, while ascribing to him (Atiku) 6,984520 votes.”
He explained that contrary to repeated assurances by the INEC chairman, Yakubu Mahmoud, in the build-up to the general elections to conduct the best election in Nigeria’s democratic history, the electoral umpire failed to electronically transmit results in real-time from polling units to INEC’s “electronic collation system and Results Viewing Portal (IReV)” using the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines.
He said, “By reason of the foregoing, there could not have been any valid and lawful collation and announcement of the result of the election under the Electoral Act, without the prior electronic transmission from the polling units to INEC …IReV portal using the BVAS.”
The petitioners said INEC failed to comply with Section 66 of the Electoral Act, which is incorporated with Section 134 of the Nigerian constitution. They also argued that the law provides for “geographical spread”, which must be met by the winner of the election.
Atiku equally premised his petition on the ground that the margin of lead – 1,810,206 votes – was less than the number of permanent voter cards (PVCs) collected in “the polling units where elections were cancelled and did not hold across the country.”
Consequently, Atiku argued that INEC’s declaration of Tinubu as the winner of the poll was “hasty, premature and wrongful.”
The petitioners further accused INEC of manipulating votes as electoral officials “suppressed” Atiku’s votes, crediting Tinubu and Obi with the said stolen votes.
He said Tinubu was also not elected by a majority of lawful votes cast at the poll.
He urged the court to determine that Tinubu was “not duly elected by a majority of lawful votes cast, and therefore the “president-elect’s victory is unlawful, wrongful, unconstitutional…null and void.”
Atiku prayed the court to determine that Mr Tinubu at the time of the election was not qualified to contest the said election.
He urged the court to declare him the winner of the presidential election, as he “scored the majority of lawful votes cast at the presidential election.”
In the alternative, Atiku asked the court to make an “order directing” INEC to conduct a second election (run-off) between him and Tinubu.
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