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… As PDP Witness says, he knows how BVAS works, but has never operated it
By Imrana M Abdullahi, Kaduna
There was mild drama at the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Kaduna on Wednesday, as star witness of People’s Democratic Party( PDP) and its Governorship Candidate, Hon. Isah Mohammed Ashiru contradicted self during cross examination.
The opposition PDP had at the resumed hearing of its petition on Wednesday presented a Software Developer, Mr. Steven Luka-Bivan to give testimony in support of its petition.
Luka-Bivan who claimed to have a good knowledge of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine, however contradicted himself when was being cross-examined by Counsels to the first and second respondents, as he said, he has never used a BVAS machine before.
Luka-Bivan who also stated that he was not part of the team that developed the BIVAS, said that, he only talked on the technicality of the machine in his statement of oath.
In a related development, the Defence Counsels, Alhassan Umar SAN, representing INEC, Duro Adeyele SAN, representing Uba Sani and Oladipo Tolani SAN representing APC raised objections, as the petitioners’ Lead Counsel, Oluwole Iyamu SAN said that they had a video evidence to tender begire the tribunal.
Iyamu also stated that some of the electoral documents requested by the tribunal to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in a subpoena were yet to be received.
“We have made the application to the INEC headquarters in Abuja and made the necessary payment but I was shocked today to hear that we need to make another payment. We would make payments as soon as possible today so that we can make progress,” he said.
However, the Defence Counsels in their oral objections, stated that they were served with copies of the video 10 minutes before the petitioners’ counsel sought to tender the video evidence in court.
They noted that they don’t know the content of the video and as such, they would need time to watch the video, so as to prepare them for cross examination.
Justice Victor Oviawie, who heads the three-man panel, adjourned the case till Thursday, July 20 for the video evidence to be tendered and cross examined.
He however cautioned the PDP counsel against seeking unnecessary adjournments, otherwise, he will strike out the case.
ENDS
