A cybersecurity specialist, Dr. Chibuike Ugwoke voiced allegations at a court hearing on Thursday.
He claimed the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) mistakenly uploaded a book’s image, instead of the presidential election results, on its results portal.
Ugwoke appeared before the Presidential Election Petition Court in Abuja as the eighth witness in a case filed by Peter Obi, the Labour Party’s candidate, aiming to overturn President Bola Tinubu’s election.
Although Ugwoke began his testimony on Wednesday, his cross-examination was postponed to Thursday, giving Respondents time to review his statement.
Along with INEC, President Tinubu, Vice President Kashim Shettima, and the All Progressives Congress were among the respondents in the case.
Dr Ugwoke, during questioning, explained that he examined INEC’s ICT infrastructure, referring to his analysis as “Meta Data.”
He focused his study on 12 polling units across three states – Bauchi, Anambra, and Rivers – and included Benue state in his report.
Ugwoke revealed that INEC officials made errors while uploading data to the IReV portal. He, however, did not know who was responsible for these mistakes.
“I don’t know who made the uploads, but it was from the BVAS and the number is there,” Ugwoke admitted.
The cybersecurity expert further stated that he found an instance where an image of a book was uploaded on the IReV portal in place of election results.
Despite INEC’s claims of technical glitches affecting the electronic transmission of results, Dr Ugwoke argued that such technological errors should be detected during testing before deployment.
He reiterated, “Errors arise at the time of testing, but after deployment, the probability for an error to arise may be very negligible. However, it is not impossible for an error to arise after deployment.”
After Dr Ugwoke was dismissed, Emmanuel Edet, a legal practitioner and head of legal services at the National Information Technology Development Agency (NITDA), testified as the eleventh witness.
Edet stated that there was no correspondence between NITDA and INEC concerning the ICT technology used for the 2023 general elections.
INEC’s legal team and counsel to President Tinubu expressed opposition to Edet’s evidence, arguing that it did not comply with the law as the witness was not listed by the petitioners from the start.
The hearing adjourned until Friday for further cross-examination. Despite the raised concerns, the INEC maintains that the election was free and fair, and the allegations are baseless.
