The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former Vice President Atiku on Friday presented three presiding officers (PO), who testified that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine failed to transmit the scanned result sheet of the February 25 presidential election.
The witnesses, who participated in the 2023 general election as ad hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), were drawn from Kogi, Niger and Edo states.
Regardless of the objections raised against their competence to testify by counsel to INEC, President Bola Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and the All Progressives Congress (APC), the witnesses gave their evidence-in- chief before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC).
The three ad hoc INEC presiding officers, who were subpoenaed witnesses, took their turns in the witness box where they lamented the inability of the BVAS machines to transmit the presidential results from their various polling units. They were led in evidence-in-chief by Chief Chris Uche (SAN), leading the petitioners’ legal team at the PEPC.
In her testimony, Grace Ajagbonna, a resident of Egbe, Yagba West LGA, Kogi State, and an ex-National Youth Service Corps (NYSC) member, told the court that although the election went smoothly and peaceful, she was however not happy because the BVAS machine failed to transmit the result after collation.
Before her testimony, Tinubu’s counsel, Chief Akin Olujimi SAN, lead counsel to the APC, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, and INEC lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud SAN, all raised objections, asking the court not to take the witnesses’ testimonies.
In a short ruling, Chairman of the PEPC, Justice Haruna Tsammani said, “Ruling on the objection will be delivered along with the judgment.”
After that, Grace adopted her witness statement on oath, saying she was engaged by INEC to work as an ad-hoc presiding officer during the 2023 election.
She also presented the letter of acknowledgement from INEC wherein she was deployed to serve as an adhoc staff.
Mahmoud asked her if she played her role well and if the electoral process was successful.
She responded in the affirmative but said when she tried sending the National Assembly and Presidential election scanned results, the latter failed to transmit.
“I tried it continuously. I was repeating it one after the other and it was not going,” the witness said.
She said she was unhappy when the BVAS machine could not send the presidential results sheets at the polling unit.
Under cross examination by APC counsel, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, the witness said after the conclusion of her assignment on election day, she wrote a report. After her, another INEC ad-hoc presiding officer, Abidemi Joseph, also insisted the election results could not be transmitted by the BVAS.
Edosa Obosa, an ex-NYSC corps member and presiding officer in Edo State said she tried to upload the scanned result using a BVAS machine but it failed. But the witnesses all admitted that they submitted the original result sheet, signed by party agents to the ward collation centre.
The witness was subsequently discharged from the testimony dock and the PDP petition was adjourned to Saturday. Atiku is contesting the 2023 presidential election results declared in favor of Tinubu.
