On Tuesday in Kaduna, the Bimodal Voters’ Accreditation System (BVAS) devices were presented and approved as evidence in the governorship election petition tribunal’s current session.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was served with a subpoena requesting that it bring the aforementioned items before the court on behalf of the first and second petitioners, Isa Ashiru and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), through their attorney Samuel Atung (SAN), who requested the admission of the BVAS machines as exhibits.
On the 25th day of July 2023, Yusuf Zubairu, who was present in court on behalf of the Commission (INEC), filed a written declaration under oath before the tribunal’s registrar to produce BVAS devices from 19 Local Government Areas of the state.
The Commission was compelled to testify in court during his deposition about how the devices were utilized to compile election results for the state’s most recent gubernatorial race.
Zubairu, an INEC employee who works in the ICT/Voters’ Research Department, affirmed in court that the Irev results accurately reflected the votes cast in the State’s gubernatorial election on March 18, 2023.
In the same way that he had previously explained to the court that each machine has a unique identity number, the INEC employee further stated that the BVAS machines cannot be tampered with before, during, or after the election.
While explaining how to use one of the machines, the witness informed the tribunal that although Makera polling unit 050 in Kaduna South LGA had 715 total registered voters, only 107 of them were officially recognized as electors.
Chief Duro Adeyele (SAN), the attorney for Kaduna State Governor Uba Sani, raised an objection to the admissibility of the BVAS machines through the witness earlier, before the tribunal allowed the application of the counsel for the first and second petitioners.
Additionally, the attorney claimed that the witness’ deposition did not mention that Yusuf Zubairu would open and display the BVAS machine before the tribunal, claiming that “demonstration of the BVAS’ machine is not in the witness’ statement.”
Ashiru and the PDP’s attorney stated in their counterargument that the Commission had been summoned to present and show the machine before the court.
The court will continue hearing in this matter on Wednesday, July 26, 2023.