The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has presented two witnesses to prove the claim that the governorship election results from Gayam and Chiroma wards in Lafia LGA were manipulated to favour the APC.
Its candidate, David Ombugadu, is challenging the victory of Governor Abdullahi Sule of the APC in the polls conducted in March this year.
Mr Ombugadu presented one witness each from the two wards at the resumed hearing at the governorship election petition tribunal on Wednesday in Lafia.
One of the witnesses was the Gayam ward collation agent of the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP), summoned to give evidence via a subpoena issued by the tribunal.
The witness testified that the result announced by INEC was not the true reflection of the outcome of the polls.
The witness was designated PW 12, and his subpoena, agent tag, party membership card and voters card were all admitted in evidence and marked accordingly as exhibits.
The witness said he refused to sign the form EC8B (ward collation summary) for the governorship election because the figures were entirely different from the actual summation of votes from the real computation from the respective polling units in the ward.
The Chiroma ward agent of the Action Alliance (AA) also gave evidence at the proceedings in favour of the PDP. Based on the PDP application, he was also summoned to give evidence concerning the collation of results of polling units of the Chiroma ward into the ward collation summary sheet (Form EC8B).
The witness, designated as PW13, said the summary of the results of the polling units in the Chiroma ward into the form EC8B was not a correct reflection of the computation of the votes from the respective Polling Units in the Chiroma ward.
The petitioners further called two of their Polling units agents from the Ningo-Buhar ward of Akwanga, who also testified in support of the petitioners’ case.
They were designated as PW14 and PW15, respectively.
Counsels to Mr Sule, APC and INEC, Wole Olanikpekun, Matthew Burkaa and Ishaku Dikko cross-examined the witnesses to prove that the election results reflected what had happened.
After listening to the witnesses who had pleaded that their names be left out for security reasons, the chairman of the three-man panel, Ezekiel Ajayi, adjourned the sitting until Thursday..
(NAN)
