The Abia State election petition tribunal, sitting in Umuahia, carried on with the hearing of a petition brought forward by Ambrose Okechukwu Ahiwe. The petition challenges the declaration of Alex Otti as the winner of the governorship election.
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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) presented its defense by calling only one witness, Nkemjika Kelechi Okere, who served as the electoral officer for Obingwa Local Government Area.
Okere adopted his written deposition and relied on it as evidence, acknowledging that exhibit P188 presented to the court was the authentic result sheet for Obingwa council.
In an unexpected turn, he both denied and confirmed that the same exhibit P188 (Obingwa council result) was rejected, taken to INEC headquarters in Abuja, and declared after three days by the state Returning Officer, Nnenna Otti.
During cross-examination by the petitioner’s counsel, Okere was reminded that Otti brought a result from Abuja which lacked signatures from any party agent, and this result was declared as Obingwa council’s result after three days. The witness, however, denied this fact, causing murmurs in the court due to the widely known nature of the situation.
Pressed further under cross-examination, the witness acknowledged that political parties observed collation and signed the result sheet, but the result sheet for Obingwa council lacked any political party agents’ signatures, including that of the Labour Party (LP).
When presented with exhibit P38, Okere acknowledged that it contained signature marks of agents from more than six political parties. He also agreed that he was not a polling unit collation officer and therefore could not have been present in all the polling units. He relied on information from collation officers of the 312 polling units of Obingwa council.
The witness also admitted in his deposition that collation could not take place in Nadiakata/Amairinabua Ward 9 of Obingwa council due to violence. However, upon the state returning officer’s return from Abuja, votes were unexpectedly allotted for Ward 9, where voting couldn’t happen due to violence. He confirmed that Ward 9 was allotted votes on the result sheet (P188). He eventually affirmed that he was not the INEC collation officer for Obingwa council.
In concluding his defense, J. C. Nnodim announced that INEC would not call any more witnesses from the five originally scheduled.
The tribunal adjourned to today for Governor Otti to begin his defense.
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