The Election Petition Tribunal in Jos has ordered Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), to produce the voter register and Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used in selected polling units during the state’s governorship election on March 18.
The order was issued by the tribunal’s chairman, Irele-ifeneh, yesterday during the start of hearings on the petition filed by Dr. Nentawe Yilwatda, the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in the March 18 election.
At the tribunal, the APC candidate is contesting Governor Caleb Mutfwang of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s victory.
The order was issued as a result of INEC’s failure to produce all certified true copies of documents as required by the tribunal’s subpoena to the INEC chairman and Plateau Resident Electoral Commissioner.
Salisu Aliyu, a senior system analyst from the INEC ICT department, and Festus Aisien, an assistant director at the INEC voter registry department, appeared in court on behalf of the INEC chairman, telling the court that their appearance was in response to the subpoena issued to the INEC chairman to submit certified true copies of accredited data extracted from the INEC backend server and form EC8A from the INEC Result Portal (IREV).
The chairman’s representatives only produced true certified copies of accredited data from BVAS and a portion of the list of voters required from the voter register in hard copy, while the remainder of the list of voters was in soft copy.
Due to the bulkiness of the BVAS machines and the remaining voter register, Aliyu and Festus stated that they were unable to bring them to court.
However, the petitioner’s counsel, Kayode Olatoke (SAN), objected to their submissions, claiming that all items listed in the subpoena must be presented.
Following the petitioner’s submission of counsel, the court ordered INEC to produce all documents and items listed in the subpoena within one week.