Three INEC ad hoc staffs who served as presiding officers during the general election on February 25 told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that only the presidential election results were not uploaded to IREV.
The Peoples Democratic Party, or PDP, and Abubakar Atiku served subpoenas on the three presiding officials.
The witnesses testified before the court under the direction of the petitioner’s attorney, Eyitayo Jegede, SAN, that they were successful in transmitting election results for the Senate and House of Representatives using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, or BVAS, equipment.
However, they stated in their individual testimony before the court that they were dissatisfied with the BVAS since they were unable to utilize it to send the results of the Presidential election.
The three witnesses, Janet Turaki, Christopher Ardo and Victoria Sani told the court that they were presiding officers in Yobe, Bauchi and Katsina states respectfully.
The witnesses all agreed that other aspects of the election went well until it was time to upload the presidential results then the BVAS machines refused to work.
Ms Turaki, under cross-examination by counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, told the court that the accreditation of voters was successful and voting went on smoothly at her polling unit.
She said it was after she attempted to upload the presidential election result after capturing it with the BVAS machine that the network went awry.
The witness said that having failed to successfully upload the presidential election results, she handed over everything to her ward collation agent and filled out the complaint form that INEC had provided for such purposes.
She said that she and other party agents present signed the result on the form EC8A before she took it to the ward.
For his part, Mr Ardo told the court under cross-examination by counsel to President Bola Tinubu, Wole Olanipekin, SAN, that he felt unfulfilled in his assignment with INEC on the election day.
He said this was due to his inability to transmit the presidential election result as required by law.
In her own testimony, Sani under cross examination by counsel to the All Progressives Congress, APC, Charles Edosanwan, SAN, told the court that she believed that she performed her duties as a presiding officer to the best of her ability.
The five-member panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned proceedings until Tuesday for a continuation of the hearing in the petition.
Mr Atiku and the PDP are before the court challenging the outcome of the Feb. 25 presidential election.
One of the grounds of their petition is that INEC failed to transmit election results to its INEC Result Viewing Portal, IREV, in real-time as the Chairman, Yakubu Mahmood, had said it would before the election.
