Two ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) testified on Saturday that they had no part in purportedly tampering with the results of the 2023 presidential election.
The INEC ad-hoc staff members, Alheri Ayuba and Sadiya Haruna testified before the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, sitting in Abuja, as witnesses in the petition of the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, filed to challenge the outcome of the presidential election.
They testified in a case filed by the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, challenging the election’s outcome.
After being subpoenaed as witnesses, both Ayuba and Haruna affirmed their previously written statements made under oath.
Ayuba, known in court as the 17th petitioners’ witness, and Haruna, the 18th witness, provided their testimonies under the guidance of the petitioners’ lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche.
Both witnesses detailed technical difficulties during the voting process. Ayuba, who served as a Presiding Officer in Garki, Abuja, described failed attempts to upload the election results to INEC’s IRev portal using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device.
Despite her training, she was unable to transmit the results electronically.
Haruna, who served as a Presiding Officer at City Centre in Abuja, experienced similar issues.
According to the witness, every effort she made to electronically transmit the results as she was trained to do by the Commission, failed.
The INEC ad-hoc staff, who is a former youth corps member, said her inability to upload the result from her polling unit, to the result viewing portal, made her unhappy.
“After sorting out the ballot, I announced results to everybody’s hearing and diligently entered the scores to form EC8A and handed the original to the ward collation officer. Party agents present equally signed the result sheets.
“I however had problems of transmitting the result from BVAS machine to IReV.
“There was a form that I filled at the Ward Centre where I stated that I was not happy at my inability to transmit the result.
“I could not log into the INEC portal. If I had logged into the system and posted the result, perhaps, it could have ‘pending’’ status so that when network is restored, it would upload,’’ she added under cross-examination.
Asked if she was bribed to rig the election, the witness, said she was neither induced nor influenced by any politician, before or during the election.
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In her own testimony, the PW-18, Haruna told the court that she served as Presiding Officer at the City Centre, by Green Garden, FCT, Abuja.
She told the court that the BVAS device malfunctioned at her polling unit and thus made it impossible for her to transmit the results of the election from her polling unit.
The witness told the court that the result she entered manually at her polling unit was what she took to the Ward Collation Officer, with agents of political parties monitoring the entire process.
Haruna said she had after the BVAS device failed, activated the offline transmission process, but could not ascertain if the results she snapped with the device eventually uploaded or not.
She told the court that she was not in a position to know what made the INEC BVAS machine malfunction, saying she was only instructed on how to use the machine.
The witness equally told the court that she was not induced to rig the result of the presidential election.
Meanwhile, all the Respondents- INEC, President Bola Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima and the All Progressives Congress, APC- opposed the admissibility of statements of the witnesses, saying they would adduce reasons behind their objections, in their final written address.
The Justice Haruna Tsammani-led five-member panel adjourned further hearing on the petition till Tuesday.
Atiku, who came second in the presidential poll, is among other reliefs, praying the court to declare that he was the valid winner of the presidential contest, even as he applied for the withdrawal of the Certificate of Return that was issued to President Tinubu by INEC.
