Two subpoenaed witnesses of Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in the 2023 presidential election has told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) on Thursday, that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) failed to transmit the results of the election after the collation.
The witnesses, Friday Egwuma and Grace Timothy, are both ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
They claimed the BVAS machine allocated to them developed system error immediately the results of the Senate and House of Representatives aspects of the poll were freely transmitted.
In their subpoena evidence, the two workers of the electoral body 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.
Egwuma was a Presiding Officer in a polling unit in Abia State while Grace Timothy served INEC in Plateau State.
Apart from the failure of the BVAS machines to transmit the presidential election results, the two witnesses admitted that voting went smoothly in their respective places of work.
They were led in evidence by Atiku’s lead counsel Chief Chris Uche SAN.
Under cross-examination by Mr Abubakar Mahmud SAN, who stood for the electoral body, Egwuma explained that he resorted to an offline system in place of the BVAS machines.
In her own testimony, Grace Timothy told the Court that the greatest challenge she experienced during the election was the uploading of the presidential election results into the I- rev portal.
The witnesses were also cross-examined by Chief Wole Olanipekun SAN who stood for President Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Prince Lateef Fagbemi SAN who represented the All Progressives Congress APC.
Meanwhile, further hearing in the petition has been shifted to June 9 by the Presiding Justice of the Court, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani.
