Three witnesses, who served as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ad-hoc officers during the presidential election testified as subpoenaed witnesses for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
More ad-hoc presiding officers on Friday told the Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal that the February 25 Presidential Election results were not transmitted from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) at polling units to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
Three witnesses, who served as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ad-hoc officers during the presidential election testified as subpoenaed witnesses for the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
One of the witnesses, Grace Ajagbona, a resident of Egbe in Yagba West Local Government Area of Kogi State and an ex-National Youth Service Corps member, told the tribunal that they were able to upload results of the Senate and House of Representatives elections but they did not transmit results of the presidential election which held simultaneously.
Ajagbona told the court that she was not happy that she could not upload the polling unit results of the presidential election as provided in the Electoral Act, 2022 and the training manual.
Daily Trust reports that when counsel to President Bola Tinubu, who is the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), asked Ajagbona if she entered the name of her training officer in her statement, she answered no.
In the same vein, another witness, Abidemi Joseph, who served in Niger State during the election told the court that the presidential election results could not be transmitted by the BVAS from polling units.
Similarly, the third witness, Edosa Obosa, a corps member who served in Edo State as a presiding officer said she tried to upload the scanned results of the presidential election using the BVAS machine but it failed.
Under cross examination by lawyers to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN); Bola Tinubu, Akin Olujimi (SAN); and the APC, Lateef Fagbemi (SAN) all the three witnesses admitted that they manually submitted the original result sheets signed by party agents to the ward collation centres.