…As INEC Chairman Subpoenaed Again Over National Voters Register
A statistician and forensic examiner, Samuel Oduntan, who was presented by the Peoples Democratic Party and its flagbearer, Atiku Abubakar, has urged the Presidential Election Petitions Court sitting in Abuja to deduct “irregular votes” from the 2023 presidential election results declared in favour of President Bola Tinubu by the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Yakubu Mahmood, in the 2023 election.
Oduntan made the request during cross-examination by lawyers representing the Independent National Electoral Commission, President Bola Tinubu and the All Progressives Congress.
According to him, he studied the polling unit results from across the federation, alongside 6 team members and discovered that alleged irregular votes were entered across the states including where the PDP won.
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Under cross-examination by Tinubu and Shettima’s lawyer, Wole Olanipekun SAN, he admitted however that he did not attach pictorial samples of any of the INEC forms he referred to in his report.
He explained that he did not have to attach them to his report because he was convinced the PDP lawyers would tender INEC electoral forms as exhibits to buttress his assessment of the polls.
“Did you take the votes of all the 18 political parties into consideration during your analysis?,” Olanipekun asked, to which the witness responded in the affirmative.
He was asked severally to tell the court if he was not satisfied with votes given to Atiku Abubakar because of the irregularities he discovered.
The witness maintained he was not satisfied with irregular votes entered across the states, adding “and that is why we seek a deduction.”
Under further cross-examination by Lateef Fagbemi SAN, Oduntan admitted he had been following and analysing INEC conduct of elections since 1999.
He said his inspection of the election results was in company of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) officials.
Oduntan noted that he did not conduct extraction of reports from BVAS machine because it had already been reconfigured by the electoral umpire.
The witness was subsequently discharged by the court.
Afterwards, PDP’s lead counsel, Chris Uche told the court that following a subpoena on the INEC Chairman to produce more electoral documents, few of the documents requested for have been accessed by them.
He then tendered as more evidence, Forms EC8D series (results for the 36 states), EC8DA(Final Declaration of results), CTC of accreditation data on BVAS machines in respect of Rivers State and for the entire federation, and EC9 Form (containing particulars of Tinubu).
The documents sought to be tendered were objected to by the respondents but the court admitted them as Atiku’s evidence.
Uche further notified the court of another subpoena against the INEC Chairman to produce the Voters Register used in the 2023 election.
The court subsequently adjourned hearing to Friday.
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