The Election Petition Tribunal, currently in session in Jos, has issued an order to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to produce the voter register and Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) used in selected polling units during the March 18 governorship election in the state.

The tribunal’s chairman, R Irele-ifeneh, delivered the order yesterday as the hearing of the petition filed by Dr. Nentawe Yilwatda, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the March 18 election, commenced.

Dr. Yilwatda is contesting the victory of Governor Caleb Mutfwang of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the tribunal.

The order was prompted by INEC’s failure to produce all certified true copies of documents as required by the subpoena issued to the INEC chairman and Plateau Resident Electoral Commissioner by the tribunal.

Representing the INEC chairman, Salisu Aliyu, a senior system analyst from INEC’s ICT department, and Festus Aisien, an assistant director at the INEC voter registry department, informed the court that their appearance was in response to the subpoena issued to the INEC chairman for the submission of certified true copies of accredited data extracted from the INEC backend server and form EC8A from the INEC Result Portal (IREV).

However, the chairman’s representatives only presented the certified true copies of accredited data from BVAS and a portion of the required list of voters from the voter register in hard copy format, while the remaining list of voters was provided in soft copy.

Aliyu and Festus explained that they were unable to bring the BVAS machines and the remaining voter register to the court due to the bulky nature of the items.

However, the petitioner’s counsel, Kayode Olatoke (SAN), objected to their submissions, insisting that all items listed in the subpoena must be presented.

After considering the counsel’s argument, the court ordered INEC to produce all the documents and items as specified in the subpoena within one week.