INEC Staff Tells Court How They Failed To Transmit Presidential Election Results

Post created on 4:49 pm

An ad-hoc staff who served as a presiding officer with the Independent National Electoral Commission in the 2023 February presidential election has testified that the results of the election refused to be transmitted with the BVAS technology.

The witness that appeared to speak for PDP and Atiku Abubakar said he was able to transmit the senatorial and house of representatives results but unable with that of the presidential.

He was identified by the initial EOF on a copy of his appointment letter as INEC presiding officer for Polling Unit 017, Ward 3 in Abia North Local Government Area was tendered before the court and admitted as an exhibit.

EOF testified that he and others were trained on how to transmit the results.

He said after hours of sorting and counting the votes, it was entered into form EC8A and was signed by party agents and the police later took a snap shot of it, but could not transmit it using the BVAS, and had to deliver it manually to the ward collation centre.

A cross examination by INEC counsel showed that the witness admitted that he was trained on offline transmission as well which involved uploading the image of the result sheet even when there was no network; adding that by the training given them, the process will automatically be completed when there was network in the BVAS device.

Under cross-examination by lawyers for Bola Tinubu and the APC, the witness admitted that there was no issue in his polling unit and that he was happy with the exercise since the police were present to guard them. Responding to further questioning, the witness also confirmed that the Labour Party won the election in his polling unit.