The Osun election tribunal sitting in Abuja on Thursday heard that there were several cases of over-voting and alterations of form EC8 at Iragbiji, the home town of the declared winner of the election, Gboyega Oyetola of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Some witnesses for the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said this while giving their testimonies.
Counsel to Senator Ademola Adeleke and the PDP, Emeka Ikpeazu, SAN, had continued the presentation of witnesses to support the petitioner’s case to be declared duly elected Governor of Osun State.
One of the witnesses, a caterpillar operator said the result on pink and white result sheets was doctored, stating that most signatures on the forms were not there originally.
Affirming that the forms were doctored and altered, the witness shouted in court “these are forged. These are doctored”
The witness from unit 3, ward 4 of Iragbiji, Boripe local government said emphatically that there was over-voting and alteration of form EC8.
Another witness from Iragbiji corroborated the earlier one, pointing out during cross examination that over-Voting and doctoring of results sheet was rife during and after the poll.
“The final result is different from what we have after the polling. The final votes for the parties are inflated. A lot of magomago were done”, the witness insisted during cross examination by the APC and INEC lawyer.
Six other witnesses followed similar lines, calling into question the authenticity of the results and alleging that most figures allocated to the APC were doctored.
Attempts by the defence team to make the witness recant proved unsuccessful.
It would be recalled that on Wednesday PDP witnesses called attention of the court to strange alterations on certified true copy (CTC) of form EC8.
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This happened when PDP lawyer, N.O Oke, SAN, asked PDP witnesses to compare the pink copy of form EC8 he collected on election day and the Certified True Copy.
Counsel to APC raised an objection but tribunal Judge overruled his objection and this gave the witnesses the opportunity to expose discrepancies between the two documents.
Virtually all the PDP witnesses pointed attention of the judges to alterations on CTC, although INEC and APC lawyers tried to turn the story upside down but PDP witnesses insisted no alterations on pink copy which they rely on. Every PDP witness established over voting in their individual polling unit.
All efforts by respondents to manoeuvre PDP witnesses as those who cannot express themselves fluently in English language told the court in localisee English that “numbers of votes wey INEC announce is much than number of people wey dem accredit.”
