Tribunal Drama: ‘Election Results Were Not Deleted, Witness Completely Ignorant’ – INEC Replies PDP

• INEC denies deliberate deletion of election results from BVAS machines, calling the witness ignorant.

• BVAS is not an electronic voting machine and does not store election results, according to INEC.

• Witness’s allegations are baseless and reveal a lack of understanding of the electoral process, says INEC.

EKO HOT BLOG reports that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has described a witness of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who asserted on Thursday at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) that the commission deliberately deleted results of the 2023 presidential election from the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines, as ignorant.

Recall that a PDP witness identified as Hitler Nwala, had yesterday testified that INEC intentionally deleted results of the 2023 presidential election from the BVAS machines.

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Nwala said his analysis of the BVAS revealed that their results were deleted but did not know when the deletion was carried out.

Under cross-examination by INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, Nwala said he attached a standard device to the BVAS machine to arrive at his conclusion.

He, however, refused to demonstrate how results can be deleted from the BVAS machine when he was given one at the tribunal saying it was against the ethics of his profession to collect the BVAS in an open court to check it.

Meanwhile, this online media platform gathered that sources from within the commission have said his assertion is not possible, because the BVAS is not an electronic voting machine, so it was unfortunate that any ICT expert could posit that the machine has the capacity to store election results.

A deputy director at the commission who did not want his name mentioned told Vanguard that Nwala’s assertions as untrue, laughable and a figment of his imagination.

According to the INEC staff, BVAS was not designed as an electronic voting machine in the first place and cannot count, collate and record raw votes at the polling units.

The source said “The BVAS is not an electronic voting machine. It does not count and record votes. Each BVAS contains the data of registered voters of one polling unit only to which it is assigned and accredits only the registered voters of that particular polling unit.

“So, when anyone alleges that INEC wiped off the election result from the BVAS, you automatically realize that such an individual is ignorant and knows next to nothing about the functions of the BVAS and the electoral process.”

Another senior staff of the commission said INEC does not even organize governorship elections in the Federal Capital Territory FCT.

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“The fact that the individual talked about a governorship election in the FCT only confirms his poor understanding of the country’s electoral architecture,” the source noted.

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