Election Results, BVAS Report Established over Voting for Adeleke, Witness Tells Tribunal
Election Results, BVAS Report Established over Voting for Adeleke, Witness Tells Tribunal Petition Tribunal that he had discovered irregularities in the results used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ademola Adeleke, as the winner of the election.
Olanrewaju stated that he had arrived at this conclusion after analysing the result forms for the election and comparing them with the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS).
Olanrewaju made these revelations while giving evidence before the Justice Tertsea Kume-led tribunal at the resumed hearing in the petition filed by the Osun State Governor, Adegboyega Oyetola, and the All Progressives Congress (APC) yesterday.
This is just as the tribunal struck out the application by counsel for INEC, Prof. Paul Ananaba (SAN), filed to set aside the subpoena issued on the INEC for the production of Adeleke’s credentials used in the 2018 governorship election.
The witness, who was led in evidence by the petitioners’ counsel, Chief Akin Olujinmi (SAN), stated that he relied on forms EC8As, EC8B, EC8C, EC8D, EC8E and BVAS report released by INEC to arrive at his findings.
The witness said that he analyzed the results of the election in 749 units across 10 local government areas, as opposed to the 762 units suggested to him by the counsel for the respondents.
According to him, “That is your opinion; I worked on just 749 units, so where you got 762, I don’t know.”
The witness was later cross–examined by counsel to Ogunbiyi, Babajide Oyewo (SAN), and that of the PDP, Alex Izinyon (SAN).
He told the tribunal that though he didn’t operate the BVAS machine on the election day on July 16, 2022, he received the Certified True Copy (CTC) of the BVAS report on July 27, 2022, after the election.
The witness‘s style of testifying threw the entire court into laughter when he mentioned the documents he used for his analysis, saying: “I used form EC8A, EC8B, EC8C, EC8D, EC8E, and BVAS report.”
He testified that he is an expert, who had operated several electronic devices, including BVAS, before, and was aware that an electoral officer might fail to submit the data imputed into the machine or that if the network was bad, the data submitted would not be successful.
When asked again whether his analysis was done only where the PDP won, the witness stated that his analysis was conducted across “I did my analysis across 749 polling units in 10 local government areas regardless of which party won.”
The tribunal had earlier granted an application by Oyetola‘s counsel to amend the list of witnesses filed before the panel by including the acronym used to represent their names.
Olujinmi had also informed the tribunal that the INEC counsel had filed an application to attack the Subpoena issued by the tribunal on INEC to bring Adeleke’s certificate and other documents he used in the 2018 governorship election.
He said that the evidence of his next witness would be based on the documents that are being requested. He said that he would wait to call the next witness until the tribunal decides on the application of the INEC counsel.
The tribunal had earlier fixed tomorrow (Tuesday) for the hearing of the application and agreed that the witness should wait until it takes a stand on the said application before he withdraws the application.
Meanwhile, the tribunal has struck out the application by counsel for INEC, Ananaba, filed to set aside the subpoena issued on the INEC for the production of Adeleke’s credentials used in the 2018 governorship election.
The ruling of the tribunal followed the application by INEC counsel to withdraw the application.
Addressing journalists after the sitting, Olujinmi said the application was the only obstacle for the appearance of INEC official to produce Adeleke’s credentials, saying the obstacle has been dealt with and the INEC Resident Electoral Commission (REC) would have to appear before the court with the documents requested for.
“What happened today is that the petitioners called their witness who gave oral evidence on the analysis he did on the results produced by INEC after the election. And the other witnesses who will testify will be coming in tomorrow and the court has adjourned to tomorrow.
“As regards the subpoena, we expect that the only obstacle as against it was the application filed on behalf of INEC against the subpoena but they withdrew that application today which means the subpoena could be obeyed by INEC and then the officer we subpoenaed will appear in court by tomorrow with those documents,” Olujinmi added.
