An agent of Borno State’s main opposition party told the Presidential Election Petition Court that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) connived with the All Progressive Congress ruling to secure a fraudulent increase of more than 1,000 polling units in the state during the February elections.
The witness, Nickolas Shediza, a state collation agent for the Democratic People’s Party, informed the court that while he knew that Borno State had a statuary of 3,933 voting units, voting units were controversially increased to 5078 during the election.
Mr Shediza also alleged that the number of votes declared to have been cast in parts of the state, 919, 786, was higher than the number of accredited voters previously announced by INEC for the voting area.
However, as allegedly announced by INEC, the witness was unable to state the number of certified voters.
The paper quoted INEC’s resident electoral commissioner in the state, Mohammed Magaa’ji, in a February study by This Day newspaper as stating that there were 3,933 polling units provided by INEC across the 27 Borno State local government areas.
However, the article added that the state had more than 2.3 million registered voters.
Also in a related testimony, another witness, Jaffaru Ibrahim informed the tribunal that the EC8C form contained “mutilated” results summed up from wards and parts of local government.
However, Mr Ibrahim, a lawyer, said he signed the EC8C form to prove he was there when the “mutilated results” were controversially transmitted from the ward and the result sheets of the local government to the EC8C form.
“My signature was not to endorse the firm but to show that I witnessed the irregularities, in accordance with provisions of the electoral act,” Mr Ibrahim said.
In a related testimony, another witness, John Makama, also a PDP agent from Kaduna State, said he witnessed the result sheets being cancelled at the voting centers of the Sanga local government, as opposed to what he thinks to be the practice of correcting problematic inputs in the electoral forms in the polling units.
However, Mr Makama and other PDP officials informed the tribunal that most of what they stated in their witness statements was part of reports submitted to them by collation officials from the ward and local government.
They also said the ward reports were not connected to their witness statements, as were local government officials.
So far, six witnesses have testified at the court hearing on Thursday.
The election tribunal is now in its fifth day since the PDP and its presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar’s main hearing of the petition started on July 4.
Mr Atiku’s running mate, Peter Obi, a former governor of the Anambra State, was in court to represent the petitioners while Adams Oshiomhole, the national chairman of the APC, appeared for the APC and Muhammadu Buhari, the president.
The PDP and two other parties challenge the February 23 general elections that saw Mr Buhari emerge as Nigeria’s election winner and second term president.
Mr Atiku, the PDP candidate, has claimed that he defeated the incumbent president with over 1 million votes,
The Peoples Democratic Movement (PDM) and the Hope Democratic Party (HDP) are the other parties challenging the election.