Presidential poll: INEC deliberately deleted results in BVAS, PDP expert witness tells court

A witness of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) told the presidential election petition court on Thursday that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) deliberately deleted presidential election results from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines. 

Testifying as the petitioners’ 26th witness, Hitler Nwala, a digital forensic analyst, said he inspected 110 BVAS devices used during the presidential polls in the FCT.

He insisted that all the machines he inspected had their data deliberately removed.

He said it was unnecessary to delete the FCT presidential poll result data since governorship election does not hold in the FCT. 

However, during cross-examination of the witness, Abubakar Mahmoud, counsel to INEC, faulted the report of the witness.

Mahmoud said 110 BVAS devices examined by the witness is not sufficient sample size to establish the allegations against the commission.

He said the witness based his report on only about 3.5% of the total number of BVAS used in the FCT and 0.06% of the total BVAS used for the presidential poll across the country.

In March, the petitioners had filed an application seeking to inspect sensitive materials used by INEC for the conduct of the February 25 elections.

The electoral body had however said it needed to re-programme the BVAS ahead of the March 11 elections. The court had upheld INEC’s submission.

After the witness was discharged, the petitioners tendered electoral documents from four states.

The documents are certified true copies of polling unit results (form EC8A) from Ogun (20 LGAs), Ondo (17 LGAs), Jigawa (27 LGAs) and Rivers (20 LGAs).