Kaduna Governorship Election: Ashiru Seeks Court’s Approval to Extract Information from BVA’s Machines

By Abdulwaheed Olayinka Adubi, Kaduna

As the tribunal petition marked EPT/KD/Gov/4/23 continued in Kaduna, the PDP gubernatorial candidate at the March 18, 2023 election, Hon. Isa Ashiru has sought the approval of the tribunal to allow him to extract information from the BVA’s machines used at the last guber polls.

This is just as 105 Bimodal Voters’ Accreditation System (BVAS) machines were sighted at the court during the proceedings which were part of exhibits to be tendered by the 1st and 2nd petitioners; Isa Ashiru and PDP respectively at the next adjourned date.

The petitioners had also at the resumed hearing of its petition on Thursday presented another witness, Bako Moses Duniya to testify against the election processes that produced the incumbent governor of Kaduna state, Dr. Uba Sani.

Mr. Duniya who is a Data analyst with Micro Focus Nigeria Limited swore to an oath before the court that three polling units results in respect to Makera ward of Kaduna South Local Government Area of the state were manipulated in favour of the APC.

The witness who adopted his deposition as his evidence before the court further explained that mutilation was done on the original results sheets in respect to polling unit 018, 001, 002 in Makera ward respectively.

Mr. Duniya who was the fourth witness to be called by the petitioners demonstrated the said exhibits in a graphical format using plasma Television to buttress his point before the court of the alleged election malpractices, just as he equally disclosed that he interacted with 88 BVAS machine at the INEC office in Kaduna.

During the cross examination, the witness explained that he did not capture the BVAS machines that were bypassed in his deposition.

However, before the exhibits were admitted by the Justice Victor Oviawe led panel, the counsels to the 1st (INEC), 2nd (Uba Sani) and 3rd (APC) respondents respectively objected to the admissibility of the exhibits tendered by the petitioners before the court.

The counsel to INEC, Alhassan Umar, during the cross examination told the court that the witness is not an expert in statistics, and therefore his methodology, if failed could make his conclusion ineffective.

The argument of the 1st respondent counsel followed the claim of the witness who said: ” in many cases, magic biro or pencil were used to change election results.”

Meanwhile, the counsel to the respondents, upon objecting to the admissibility of the documents, said that they shall be given their reasons in their final written addresses.

The court adjourned the case to Monday, July 2023 for further cross-examination examine other witnesses.