…Tribunal adjourns till July 18, for INEC to open its defense
Governorship candidate of Labour Party, LP, Mr. Chijioke Edoga, on Sunday closed his case against the declaration of Peter Mbah of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, by Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, winner of March 18, poll.
Edoga closed his case at the election tribunal sitting in Enugu.
The LP governorship candidate closed his case after calling 30 witnesses.
Also, an INEC subpoenaed witness, Mr. Victor Okafor, tendered the five BVAS machines to the Tribunal.
Edeoga in his petitiion is praying the tribunal to disqualify Mbah over an alleged NYSC certificate forgery and manipulation of election results.
At the hearing in the matter on Sunday, the INEC subpoena witness, Okafor told the Tribunal that his commission provided five BVAS machines that were provided in the subpoena list.
Edeoga counsel, Mr Eyitayo Fatogun, SAN, tendered the five BVAS machines to the Tribunal as PDP counsel, Dr. Onyechi Ikpeazu and Mbah’s counsel, Mr Alex Izinyon, objected to the tendering of the machines.
The counsels said that their reasons would be made known during their final addresses.
The tribunal, however, admitted the BVAS machines as evidence.
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Upon cross examination by Fatogun, the subpoena witness said that the information that were generated on the BVAS machines during the governorship election on March 18, were now contained in the BVAS report from the Headquarters in Abuja.
He said that he did not have the BVAS machines for Owo and Ugboka registration areas of Nkanu East LGA, adding that the machines could only be identified by their codes.
The witness said the codes of the five BVAS machines brought include 14/08/06/003, 14/08/01/002, 14/08/06/005, 14/08/17/012, 14/08/01/003.
He added: “All the machines contained the BVAS and accessories.”
According to him, he could not operate the BVAS machines beyond the information he earlier gave concerning them because they (machines) had not been used since after the election.
The subpoena witness further said that the machine could contain only successfully uploaded accredited information.
The two last witnesses called by the LP, Mr. Godwin Abba and Amos Onyebuchi, who were LP agents, from Ette central and Ikwele Ugbele respectively, both from Igbo-Etiti North LGA said that there was over voting at their polling units during the governorship election.
Meanwhile, INEC counsel, applied for a date to open their defense.
Chairman of the Tribunal, Justice M. Akano adjourned the matter till July 18, for INEC to open its defense.
