The Presidential Election Petition Court sitting in Abuja on Saturday corrected the lawyer representing President Bola Tinubu, Emmanuel Ukala SAN, during cross-examination when he asked a polling unit presiding officer in FCT to confirm whether the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS machine she used at her polling unit could not transmit scanned copy of result sheet, but worked elsewhere and that 94.7 percent of the presidential election results is on the INEC Results Viewing Portal, IRev.
The subpoenaed witness(PW17),
Alheri Ayuba who said she served in the Federal Capital Territory was presented in court by the Peoples Democratic Party and Atiku Abubakar, as part of the witnesses for the petitioner.
At the resumption of sitting on Saturday, PDP counsel, Chris Uche SAN, said he would call more subpoenaed witnesses beginning with her.
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Alheri Ayuba came up and adopted her statement on oath but the lawyers representing Tinubu, Kashim Shettima and All Progressives Congress asked the court not to take her testimony.
“Ruling on the objection will come at the delivery of final judgement,” Justice Haruna Tsammani held.
Under cross-examination, INEC counsel, Oluwakemi Pineiro asked the witness to confirm if she performed her duties diligently on the day of election and that election went on smoothly.
The witness agreed that the election went smoothly except with regards to the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System machine which did not transmit scanned copy of results after she clicked “send” on the device.
On the usage of BVAS, APC lawyer, Emmanuel Ukala SAN asked the witness to confirm if when the BVAS failure to transmit results was resolved, it showed pending on the device and will be sent to the INEC Results Viewing Portal, IRev later.
“It’s not possible my lord; I could not log in on BVAS not to talk of sending the results,” the witness replied.
Ukala then put it to her that despite the glitch she experienced at her polling unit, a lot of presidential election results were successfully sent to IREV by BVAS machine.
He suggested to her that over 94.7 percent of the presidential election results is currently on Irev.
The witness said she wouldn’t know about that, adding “I only operated in my polling unit.”
But Justice Haruna Tsammani told Ukala to “limit” his cross examination to the polling unit where the presiding officer said she served.
He wondered how she can competently speak about results on IRev when she only served at a polling unit.
Ukala replied the judge that he only wanted to pass across his own position on the election to the open court.
The APC legal team asked her if she filled any INEC Form complaining about the BVAS despite Labour Party winning at her polling unit, to which she said there was a form for laying of complaint at the Ward collation centre and “I filled the form stating I was not happy that the BVAS did not transmit the scanned result.”
The APC insisted that the actual name of the presiding officer that operated at the polling unit she identified was Felix Blessing.
She disagreed.
Subsequently, the court discharged her from the dock.
Then came Sadiya Mohammed Haruna, a presiding officer in another polling unit in FCT
Under interrogation by INEC lawyer, Steve Adehi SAN, she admitted that everything went well in her polling unit except the BVAS transmission of result.
INEC accused her of not serving at the polling unit she identified because her appointment letter from the electoral commission stated “ward” but did not specify the polling unit.
She insisted that INEC deployed her to serve at her polling unit.
When Ukala’s turn came, he repeated same question he asked the first witness for today regarding results on the IREV.
“Not really sure. I am only concerned about my polling unit,” Haruna said.
The APC lawyer, S. Umoh SAN told her that the polling unit she mentioned was not the exact place she served.
She denied it.
The court subsequently adjourned to June 13 for continuation of hearing.
So far, the PDP has brought 17 witnesses, largely state collation officers and INEC ad-hoc staff, to substantiate their claim that the election was rigged.