The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, deliberately deleted presidential election results from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, machines, a witness has told the court.
Hitler Nwala, a People’s Democratic Party, PDP, witness made the testimony at the Presidential Election Petition court on Thursday in Abuja.
Recall that INEC had secured a court approval to delete the results of the February 25 presidential election from the BVAS so that the machines could be used for the governorship and state House of Assembly election.
The witness while testifying said there was no need to delete the results on BVAS used in the Federal Capital Territory, FCT, Abuja since there was governorship election to be held.
The witness, a forensic expert said the results on 110 BVAS devices he inspected were deliberately deleted by INEC even when there was no need to do so.
An INEC witness, Abubakar Mahmoud, however faulted the report of the PDP witness, saying the 110 BVAS are not sufficient to establish the allegations of fraud against the commission.
Mahmoud said during cross-examination that the PDP witness report is only about 3.5 percent of the total number of BVAS used in the FCT and 0.06 percent of the total BVAS used for the presidential poll across the country.
The FCT result is being contested by both the candidate of the Labour party, Peter Obi, and Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.
It’s one of the major contention at the election Tribunal as the two candidates are trying to exploit a constitutional provision which requires a candidate in the election to win 25 percent of the votes cast in FCT before such can be declared the winner.
Bola Ahmed Tinubu, who was declared winner by the INEC did not secure 25 percent in the FCT.
