A witness of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its presidential candidate, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar, appeared before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja. The witness, Mr. Hitler Nwala, who was subpoenaed to testify, made a significant claim during his testimony. He stated that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had deleted the presidential election results from all 110 BVAS machines he inspected.
Mr. Nwala, introduced as an expert witness for the petitioners, was questioned by the lead counsel for the petitioners, Mr. Chris Uche, SAN. The witness confirmed that the machines he examined were specifically from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT). He also stated that he worked as a Digital Forensic Analyst and acknowledged that he was uncertain about the exact point at which the results were deleted from the machines.
During cross-examination by INEC's counsel, Mr. Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, the witness explained that he had connected a standard device to the machines to reach his conclusion. When asked if he had the authority from the commission to attach an external device to the BVAS machines, the witness affirmed that he did.
Mr. Mahmoud then highlighted that the witness's inspection of only 110 machines out of the total 3,163 deployed in the FCT represented a mere 3.4 percent of the BVAS machines used in the FCT and only 0.06 percent of the BVAS machines deployed nationwide. In response, Mr. Nwala admitted that he had solely compiled the report and hadn't calculated the percentages.
In an attempt to verify the witness's claim, the INEC counsel offered a BVAS machine to the witness for inspection. However, Mr. Nwala declined, stating that it would be against professional ethics to access a device that would be used as evidence in court. He emphasized that the proper procedure was to extract the evidence from the device and take it for analysis.
Furthermore, the witness mentioned that since all the devices had the same model and outward appearance, he couldn't determine if the machine presented in court was one of those he had inspected by merely looking at it.
Subsequently, Mr. Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), informed the witness that neither he nor any of his team members had signed the six-volume forensic report. The witness, however, insisted that he had indeed signed the report, as well as the certificate of compliance.
During questioning by Mr. Wole Olanipekun, SAN, counsel to President Bola Tinubu, the witness was confronted with a section of his report where he stated that, based on his inspection of the machines, "nothing was intrinsically wrong with them." Mr. Olanipekun asked if the witness was present in Abuja on the day of the presidential election, pointing out that without being present, the witness couldn't know if any issues had arisen with the machines on that day. Mr. Nwala admitted that he was not in Abuja and therefore couldn't have firsthand knowledge of any problems that might have occurred with the machines during the election.
After the witness was discharged, the petitioners went further to tender Forms EC8A series from 20 local government areas of Ogun, 17 local government areas of Ondo, 27 local government areas of Jigawa, and 20 local government areas of Rivers.
The Chairman of the court, Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned the hearing of the petition until Friday.
The News Agency of Nigeria, (NAN) reports that going by the pre-hearing report; Atiku and the PDP are expected to close their case on Friday.
NAN reports that they had asked for three weeks to present their case which elapsed on Tuesday but because they had lost three days, one being the June 12 Democracy Day Public Holiday, the court extended their time by three days.
