Two subpoenaed witnesses of the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the February 25 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar yesterday in Abuja admitted at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) failed to transmit results of the election after collation.
The witnesses, Friday Egwuma and Grace Timothy, who are both ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said that the BVAS machine allocated to them developed system error immediately results of the Senate and House of Representatives aspects of the poll were freely transmitted.
In their subpoena evidence, the two workers of the electoral body explained that they had to resort to other means of getting the results across when it became clear that the BVAS machines would not help them.
Egwuma was a presiding officer in a polling unit in Abia State while Ms. Timothy served INEC in Plateau State.
Apart from the failure of the BVAS machines to transmit the presidential election results, the two witnesses admitted that voting went smoothly in their respective places of work. They were led in evidence by Atiku’s lead counsel, Chris Uche.
Earlier, Tinubu and APC had vehemently kicked against the bid by Atiku to engage the ad-hoc staff to give evidence in his petition challenging the declaration of Tinubu as winner of the 2023 presidential election.
Atiku, in the bid to establish the alleged irregularities against the election, had subpoenaed three ad-hoc workers of INEC to give first-hand accounts of their experiences as they related to the presidential election of February 25.
Further hearing of the petition has been adjourned to June 9.
