Hitler Nwuala, a digital forensic expert, told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) in Abuja that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) purposefully deleted all presidential election results from the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) machines in order to prepare for the March 18 governorship election.
The forensic expert who testified as the 26th witness for Atiku Abubakar, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the February 25 election, claimed to have inspected 110 BVAS devices used during the presidential polls in the FCT and insisted that all of the machines he examined had their data deliberately deleted.
During cross-examination by INEC’s lawyer, Abubakar Mahmoud, Nwuala insisted that the electoral authority had no reason to erase the presidential election result data from BVAS machines used in the FCT because the FCT did not have governorship elections.
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The witness, who was put in evidence by Chris Uche, the lead counsel for the petitioners (Atiku and PDP), informed the court that he evaluated 110 BVAS machines as sample material from the FCT and filed a report on the BVAS.
Despite the respondents’ objections, the report was later allowed as evidence and labelled as exhibits.
Following that, the petitioners presented a certificate of compliance indicating that the report complied with the Evidence Act.
During cross-examination, Nwuala, a court-subpoenaed witness, stated that while there is a variation in the tiny sample space of 110 samples examined, “it is likely to increase as the number of sample size increases.”
The expert witness claimed that his findings demonstrated that the Federal Capital Territory’s election results during the presidential elections were purposefully removed from the BVAS system.
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In court, he stated that he “worked on 110 BVAS machines, which formed the primary source of information for his forensic report.”
He stated that the only machines reviewed were those from the FCT and that he did not know when the results were removed from the machines.
Under cross-examination by INEC counsel Abubakar Mahmoud, the witness stated that he attached a standard device to the BVAS machine to conduct his investigation.
However, INEC refuted his assertion, claiming that because he did not verify all of the machines, his claim was incorrect, but the witness stood firm.
Mahmoud handed before the court a BVAS computer for demonstration, which he wanted the witness to access and demonstrate proof that the data had been wiped.
The witness stated that it was improper for him to have immediate access to the equipment.
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He said: “We don’t access the source of evidence directly. We extract the evidence and access it from another source.
“If we access it now, the content will change and will tamper with the evidence. It is professionally wrong to tamper with evidence that will be relied upon in a court of law.”
INEC insisted that the BVAS be examined in court. However, the chairman of the five-member panel, Justice Haruna Simon Tsammani, informed the attorney that the time given for his cross-examination had expired.
Meanwhile, Tinubu’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, highlighted out inconsistencies in the forensic report on the number of computers inspected by the witness.
The senior lawyer suggested that the report might also be filled with errors, but the witness informed the court that the disparities in the numbers were typos.
Meanwhile, Atiku and his party resumed their fight against President Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s pronouncement as the victor of the election by tendering certified exhibits in four more federation states.
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The exhibits are certified true copies of INEC’s Form EC8A, which was utilized by the electoral authority during the presidential election.
The confidential documents were offered in 20 Ogun local government areas, 17 Ondo local government areas, 27 Jigawa local government areas, and 20 Rivers State local government areas.
Although INEC, Tinubu, and the All Progressives Congress (APC), the petition’s three respondents, strenuously objected the exhibits’ acceptance, the court overruled them.
In the meanwhile, further hearings on the petition have been scheduled for Friday, June 23.
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