Rivers Guber: More Contradictions, Irregularities As INEC, PDP Struggle At The Tribunal

Posted by African Examiner Featured, Latest Headlines, News From The State, Politics Monday, September 28th, 2015

BALTIMORE, MD (AFRICAN EXAMINER) – Rivers State Election Petitions Tribunal sitting in Abuja resumed hearing today Monday 28 September with witnesses of Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC struggling to justify all the irregularities evident in the exhibits before the court.

The witnesses who were mainly former members of the National Youth Service Corps, NYSC added to the brewing drama by their apparent lack of understanding of the electoral process, thereby leading to more inconsistencies in their evidence.

Apoobari Tilosi, who presided at Unit 2, Ward 4 in Gokana Local Government Area claimed to have used card readers and manual accreditation, all at the same time but failed to defend the conflicting figures he gave.

For instance, Exhibit A9 Page 56 shows that 157 voters were accredited, yet Incident Form recorded 295 cases which obviously are more than total number of accredited voters. Many people also voted without being accredited.

In a similar situation, Ogunkoya Olumide Adewale, another ex corps member who worked in Bukuma, Degema Local government Area revealed impulsively how he returned 300 votes when only three voters were accredited. Adewale who had earlier denied collecting more ballot papers than the number of registered voters later agreed to receiving extra ballot papers from INEC when he was presented with evidence.

There is also the disquieting account by another Presiding Officer, Derekumor Richard who signed as both the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP agent and as Presiding Officer.

There were in addition to all these, other corps members like Onyibe Ifeanyi, Nwachukwu Chimezie and Mohammed Yusuf who struggled endlessly to make sense. Their value was only evident in the drama which they brought to bear on the tribunal.