Election Tribunal: More Witnesses testify against INEC over BVAS, IREV disaster

Emerging reports have confirmed that more witnesses have continued to testify against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the ongoing presidential election tribunal.

According to Daily Trust, these witnesses revealed how the BVAS machine faltered and failed to transmit results to the IREV portals in several polling units.

It was gathered that three witnesses were quizzed on Friday, June 9, before the tribunal as they gave accounts of what transpired during the presidential polls.

One of the witnesses, Grace Ajagbona, an ex-National Youth Service Corps member, who resides in Egbe, Yagba West LGA, Kogi State, disclosed to the tribunal that the results of the Senate and House of Reps election were uploaded successfully, but that of the presidential election could not be uploaded.

She vented her unhappiness with her inability to upload the results as required by the Electoral Act of 2022.

Another witness, Abidemi Joseph, an ex-NYSC Corp member who served in Niger State, revealed to the court that the presidential election results could not be uploaded to the IREV portal.

Similarly, Edosa Obosa, an ex-NYSC Corp member who served in Edo State, said he could not upload the scanned results using the BVAS machine.

However, under cross-examination by lawyers to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN); Bola Tinubu, Akin Olujimi (SAN); and the APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), all admitted that they manually submitted the original result sheets signed by party agents to the ward collation centres.

Similarly, two subpoenaed witnesses of the PDP in the February 25 presidential election on Thursday admitted at the tribunal that the BVAS failed to transmit the election results after the collation.

According to the witnesses, the BVAS machine developed a system error immediately after the results of the National Assembly poll were transmitted.

The INEC ad-hoc staff explained that they had to resort to other means of getting the results when it became clear that the BVAS machines would not help them.