July 27, (THEWILL) – In continuation of the hearing of a petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in the March 2023 election in Nasarawa State, Dr. David Ombugadu, against the declaration of Governor Abdullahi Sule as the winner of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Nasarawa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Lafia, on Wednesday, admitted four additional witnesses against Abdullahi Sule, INEC and the All Progressives Congress.
While continuing their presentation of evidence, Dr. David Ombugadu and the PDP called the Gayam Ward Collation Agent of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) to the stand, who then provided evidence of vote manipulation during the 2023 Nasarawa State Governorship/State House of Assembly election.
The PRP Amagent, identified as PW12, while giving evidence by a subpoena issued by the Tribunal, revealed discrepancies in the summation of polling unit results in the Gayam Ward Collation Summary Sheet (Form EC8B).
According to him, the figures in the governorship section of the summary sheet did not accurately reflect the actual computation of votes obtained from the respective polling units in the Ward.
He said he had signed the Ward Collation Summary for the House of Assembly elections but refused to sign the one for the governorship due to obvious election irregularities.
“As Gayam Ward Agent of the PRP for the 2023 Nasarawa State Governorship/State House of Assembly elections, I signed the form EC8B (Ward Collation Summary) for Gayam Ward for the House of Assembly but did not sign that of the governorship because the figures in the said Gayam Ward Collation Summary for governorship were entirely different from the actual summation of votes gotten from the real computation from the respective polling units in the Ward,” the agent stated.
The witness identified the results of the 58 polling units of Gayam Ward earlier admitted in evidence, which summation clearly shows that the summary of votes transferred into the Gayam Ward Collation Summary Sheet for the Nasarawa governorship election was incorrect and not a true reflection of the actual votes gotten by the candidates at the polling unit level.
His subpoena, agent tag, party membership card, and voter’s card were all admitted in evidence and marked accordingly as exhibits.
Similarly, Chiroma Ward Agent of the Action Alliance, identified as PW13, also testified before the Tribunal.
His appearance at the Tribunal was aimed at shedding more light on the collation of results from polling units in Chiroma Ward into the Ward Collation Summary sheet (Form EC8B) for Lafia LGA.
The petitioners claimed that the final summary of the results did not accurately represent the votes computed from the respective polling units in Chiroma Ward.
In support of their evidence, the Petitioners called two Polling Units Agents, designated as PW14 and PW15, who provided their testimonies supporting the claims of manipulation in the election process.
After taking the witnesses, the Tribunal Chairman, Ezekiel Ajayi, adjourned the proceedings to Thursday, July 27, 2023, for the continuation of the hearing.
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
