Three PDP witnesses called by Atiku Abubakar and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) said on Friday that the exercise went well in the States where they served as election officials.
Grace Ajagbonna, Abidemi Joseph and Obosa Edosa, who testified before the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) as petitioners’ subpoenaed witnesses, said they were ad-hoc staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and served as Presiding Officers in Kogi, Niger and Edo states.
Ajagbonna, Joseph and Edosa said the whole election process went well where they served and that they complained with all the rules and regulations.
Led in evidence by petitiners’ lawyer, Chris Uche (SAN), Ajagbonna, who featured as the 14th witness of the petitioners (PW14), adopted her written statement, which was admitted by the court after the respondents registered their objection to its admissibility and promised to give reasons at the final address stage.
Under cross-examination by lawyer to INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), Ajagbonna said she accredited voters, using the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device and complied with all the instructions as was handed to them during training.
My Lord, to be sincere, I was not happy. I was not happy that I was not able to transmit the result of the presidential election. Everything else went peacefully. The election went well,” the witness added.
She had claimed in the statement, that she tried uploading the Form EC8A and election results simultaneously l, but was unsuccessful
Upon being asked by Mahmoud what she meant by trying to upload Form EC8A and result result simultaneously, since both refered to the same item, the witness said she meant “continuously or one after the other.”
Under cross examination by lawyer to President Bola Tinubu, Yusuf Ali (SAN), Ajagbonna said all the party agents signed the Form EC8A before she took the picture with the BVAS device and later submitted it at the Ward Collation Centre.
While being cross-examined by lawyer to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Ajagbonna said, by their training, no election official or party agent was expected to leave his/her duty post during the election.
“By our training, no body else is allowed at the polling unit l, except the presiding officer, collation office, party agents, security officials and the voters.
After several cross-examinations, an adjournment was applied for, which lawyers to the respondents supported, following which the court adjourned further hearing till 10 am on Saturday.
