Two ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has admitted that Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) failed during the 2023 general elections.
Friday Egwuma and Grace Timothy were acting as subpoenaed PDP witnesses when they disclosed this at the Presidential Election Petition Court.
According to them, the BVAS failed to transmit the election results after the collation.
They insisted that the BVAS machine allocated to them developed a system error immediately after the results of the Senate and House of Representatives aspects of the poll were freely transmitted.
In their subpoena evidence, they explained that they had to resort to other means of getting the results 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 Grace 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.
Atiku’s lead counsel, Chief Chris Uche SAN, led them in evidence.
The comments of the INEC officials is a setback to the election petitions of PDP’s Atiku Abubakar and Labour Party’s Peter Obi, according to judicial experts.
