PEPC Tribunal: Expert Presents Forensic Report on BVAS in Atiku’s Petition

The Peoples Democratic Party and its presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar on Thursday called a digital forensic expert to testify in aid of its petition against the President, Bola Tinubu.

The PDP and Atiku are protesting the declaration of Tinubu as the president by the Independent National Electoral Commission at the Presidential Elections Petition Court.

During the resumed hearing of their petition, the 26th witness in the petition, the witness led in evidence by the petitioners’ counsel, Chris Uche, SAN, submitted a report of his investigation carried out on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System. The report was subsequently admitted as evidence and marked as exhibits despite objections by the respondents in the matter.

Thereafter, the petitioners tendered a certificate of compliance to indicate that the report has complied with the Evidence Act. The expert witness, Hitler Nwala asserted that his findings show that the election results of the Federal Capital Territory during the Presidential elections were deliberately deleted from the BVAS machine.

The witness told the Court that he worked on 110 BVAS machines which formed the primary source of information for his forensic report. He said that the machines inspected were only those from the FCT. He, however, said that he didn’t know at what point the results were deleted on the machines.

Under cross-examination by counsel to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, SAN, the witness said that he attached a standard device to the BVAS machine to carry out his investigation.

However, INEC challenged his allegation, insisting that because he did not inspect all the machines, his claim was wrong but the witness maintained his stance.