Panelist of the presidential election tribunal were thrown into confusion on Thursday, July 4, after two result sheets were presented by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) for Nangere local government area of Yobe state.
The head of the five-man panel of justices, Mohammed Garba, while presenting the documents, discovered that form EC8C of the local government result were two, instead of one, The Cable reports.
Counsel to the opposition party and its candidate in the 2019 presidential election, Livy Uzoukwu, while responding to the judge’s query over which of the results should be admitted, informed the tribunal that “we got the two documents from INEC. So we are tendering the two.”
The tribunal subsequently admitted the two result sheets as exhibits PYB 1101 and PYB 1101A.
However, counsel for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Yunus Usman (SAN), counsel for the All Progressive Congress (APC), Yakubu Maikyau (SAN) and counsel for President Muhammadu Buhari, Mike Igbokwe (SAN), in their own argument, objected over the acceptance of the documents by the tribunal. An INEC returning officer in the Yobe south senatorial election, Adamu Abubakar, also stated that there were alterations while the results were being collated for the senatorial election.
Abubakar monitored the election in Nangere and stated this under cross-examination by Paul Erokoro (SAN), counsel to the petitioner, Mohammed Hassan.
The INEC officer said there were cancellation and alterations in some of the result sheets used for the election, and some were torn and corrections effected. He also admitted before the tribunal that a total of 12 alterations were made and that the changes were not countersigned. He said: “During our training, we were told to make amendment on issues that seem so confusing to us, I discarded some forms after receiving them. “I had a training as a local government collation officer, I was familiarized with forms used for the election like EC8B, EC8C. I know a voter register as a voter; but as a collation officer, that was not part of my training.”
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