ATIKU: INEC Lawyer Grills Presiding Officers On ‘Offline BVAS Transmission’ At Presidential Tribunal

On Monday, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, fielded three ad-hoc presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission for cross-examination in its bid to prove that INEC did not comply with electoral guidelines during the February 25 presidential election.

INEC had failed to upload results in real-time on election day.

With the three subpoenaed witnesses that appeared before the Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja today, the petitioners have presented 25 witnesses to testify against the election of President Bola Tinubu.

At the resumption of proceedings, PDP counsel, Eyitayo Jegede SAN, introduced Janet T. Turaki, a presiding officer at a polling unit in Gombe State to give evidence and be cross-examined.

Under cross-examination by INEC’s lawyer, A.B. Mahmoud SAN, the witness said although she studied Forestry and Agriculture in school, she was familiar with the use of computer.

On what she observed at her polling unit, she said accreditation of voters was successful but she could not complete the process of uploading of the scanned copy of the polling unit result for the presidential election.

The witness said she entered polling unit scores on the INEC Forms EC8As and party agents signed on it.

“The presidential result couldn’t upload but that of the Senate and House of Assembly uploaded,” the witness said.

When asked by Mahmoud whether INEC trained presiding officers to do offline transfer of Form EC8A, the witness replied “We were trained that when we find ourselves where there is no network, we do offline transmission, but it could not upload,”

But INEC lawyer maintained that she cannot tell if the offline transmission was eventually successful, to which she said, “I don’t know, actually.”

Tinubu’s lead counsel, Wole Olanipekun SAN, told the witness that she was trained by INEC to hand over the hard copy of Form EC8A (polling unit result sheet) to her superior at the Ward level, even if she could not upload electronically using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System BVAS machine.

“We were issued a complaint form and I mentioned the failure to upload results on it,” she said, noting that the conduct of the election at her polling unit was 100 percent successful apart from the failure to upload presidential election results electronically.

During questioning by APC’s lawyer, Charles Uwesoye SAN, she maintained that at her polling unit, only the upload of presidential election results was unsuccessful.

The next witness presented by the PDP was Christopher Bulus, an INEC ad-hoc presiding officer in Bauchi state.

He was asked if he was aware of offline transmission and whether he explored it on election day.

He said when he tried the offline transmission on BVAS, it did not work.

He said he was not satisfied with the electoral process because uploading the Presidential election results at the polling unit was part of the procedure they were taught by INEC.

Tinubu’s lawyer, Olanipekun asked the witness if he thinks his inability to upload scanned copy of presidential results could have affected what he recorded on the Form EC8A.

“I cannot actually say, because as a presider officer, I was asked to submit the result sheet at the Ward collation centre. I don’t know,” the witness told the court.

The witness repeated the same answer during cross-examination by the APC legal team.

After him came Victoria Sani, a presiding officer in Niger state.

She, like others, explained to the court that she accredited voters using the BVAS machine, entered the scores of all political parties on Form EC8A but could not use it to transmit presidential election result, after parties had signed on it.

On the offline method of transmission, she agreed with INEC’s lawyer, Abdullahi Aliyu SAN, that when scanned result are uploaded offline, it may transmit to IREV portal later particularly when there is network.

Under cross examination, by Olanipekun SAN, she said one party agent complained at the polling unit regarding failure to transmit presidential election results election.

“I suggest to you, that till now, no political party or candidate has complained to you that what you recorded on Form EC8A has been altered or tampered with?

“One of them, complained,” the witness replied.

The witnesses were subsequently discharged and the PEPC adjourned to Tuesday for continuation of hearing.