Atiku’s Witnesses Insist Results Not Transmitted to IReV at PU

•Obi tenders more documents to prove petition

Alex Enumah in Abuja

As hearing resumed yesterday in the petition by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, against the election of President Bola Tinubu, witnesses, who appeared before the Presidential Election Petition Court, maintained that results of the February 25 presidential election were not transmitted from the polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Viewing Portals (IReV).

The presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Mr Peter Obi, also yesterday, tendered additional documentary evidence from eight states to establish his allegations of rigging and other electoral malpractices in the February 25 presidential election.

Among the allegations of irregularities and substantial non-compliance with the law made by Atiku and PDP in their petition against the presidential election was that INEC violated its own regulations and guidelines, when it failed to transmit results of the election directly to the IReV from the various polling units.

At last week’s proceedings, Atiku and PDP called a total of six witnesses, who had evidence of irregularities and corrupt practices, and also showed how they were compelled to sign the results against their wish.

At the resume hearing yesterday, the petitioners called in four witnesses, who gave evidence on the alleged failure of INEC to transmit results from polling units directly to the IReV.

In his evidence-in-chief, one Alhaji Mohammed Madaki, the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Chairman of PDP, said, “It was not the polling units results captured on picture by the Bi-modal Verification Accreditation System (BVAS) machine that was uploaded to IreV.” Madaki added, “Uploading did not take place at the polling units.”

Madaki explained that the inability of the presiding officers to transmit results at the polling units was due to the failure of the BVAS machine.

While stating that Tinubu did not score 25 per cent of votes cast in the FCT and ought not to have been returned as president, Madaki admitted also that his candidate did not score 25 per cent in the FCT and was not entitled to be returned as president.

Another witness from Abuja, Mr Abraham David, who acted as the petitioners’ Collation Agent in the FCT, told the court that “transmission failed” at the polling units, and, apart from his polling units in Wuse Zone Four, some other polling units he visited also experienced the same failure of transmission.

But this witness claimed Atiku scored 25 per cent of the votes cast in the FCT but was denied due to unlawful votes collated in favour of Tinubu by INEC officials at the polling units.

However, during the cross-examination, the witness admitted not stating the figure of the alleged unlawful votes in his witness statement on oath, disclosing further that he did not know the names of INEC staff “that did not perform their task properly.”

Testifying, too, the collation agent of the PDP in Nasarawa State, Mr Ibrahim Hamza, corroborated the evidence of the other witnesses, and observed that the collated election result sheet before him in the court had been altered.

Hamza said, “My Lord, I can see cancellation here, the one I signed was a clear copy. Probably, after I signed they cancelled it.” He told the court that INEC staff could not transmit results to the IReV because the system failed during the process of uploading.

In addition, he alleged that PDP agents in Nasarawa State were given copies of Form EC8A after INEC officials had imputed results.

Hamza alleged, “We signed the results under duress to enable us obtain a copy. Signing the result sheet was made a condition for getting a copy of the results of the election in the state.”

Although LP won the presidential poll in Nasarawa State, Hamza urged the court to disregard the results, adding that they have the authentic results with the national agent, which showed that Atiku actually won the state.

He said, “There was a lot of abuse, due process was not followed. I had to sign because I wanted a copy of the results.” He admitted that he did not visit all the polling units in the state, where the alleged malpractices took place.

Petitioners’ witness from Rivers States, one time Minister of Transportation, Dr. Abiye Sekibo, told the court that disturbances characterised the presidential poll in Rivers State. Sekibo alleged that the figures announced by INEC were not the true reflection of the wishes of the voters on February 25 in respect of the presidential election.

He claimed to have traversed 20 polling units in Rivers State, but noted that he could not access Obio/Akpo Local Government Area because of the level of violence there, which was not present in all the other polling units where irregularities occurred.

During cross-examination by APC’s lawyer, Lateef Fagbemi, SAN, the witness said he did not mention the votes he believed PDP scored in his witness statement on oath, and admitted not mentioning the names of agents, who perpetrated violence in his statement.

Meanwhile, Obi tendered additional documentary evidence from Ebonyi, Nasarawa, Delta, Kaduna, Imo, Ondo, Sokoto, and Kogi states to establish allegations of rigging and other electoral malpractices in the presidential election.

At last week’s proceedings, Obi and his party had tendered documents from 12 states – Adamawa, Bayelsa, Oyo, Edo, Lagos, Akwa Ibom, Rivers, Benue, Cross River, Niger, Osun, and Ekiti

The exhibits, comprising forms EC8A used in the presidential election and certified by INEC as true copies of the original, were admitted as exhibits.

A breakdown of the fresh exhibits revealed that the forms EC8A were admitted in 13 local government areas of Ebonyi; Delta: 25 local government areas; Kaduna: 23 local governments areas; Imo: 27 local governments; 26 local governments of Osun State; 18 local government areas of Ondo State; 13 local government areas of Nasarawa State; seven local government areas of Sokoto State; and 21 local government areas of Kogi State.

All the respondents – INEC, Tinubu and his vice, Senator Kashim Shettima, and APC – hinted that they would be objecting to the admissibility of the documents at the final stage of address.

Earlier, the petitioners, through their lawyer, Mr Patrick Ikweto, SAN, had attempted to move an application dated June 2, wherein they claimed they had raised 12 salient questions for INEC to answer.

Ikweto stated that the “issues are germane to the trial” and prayed the court for them to be heard today.

But all the respondents claimed that they would be objecting to the application and would be doing so within the time allowed by the law.

The five-man panel headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned to today, June 6, for continuation of hearing.