News Editor
It was a bleak weekend for the ruling APC administration in Nasarawa state as it’s key wiitness, Alhaji Aliyu Bello, on Saturday gave a damning testimony of what happened at the March 18th governorship election.
Aliyu Bello who doubles as the Nasarawa State Secretary of the APC said that he was not aware of the existence of form ECGPU40, the same form INEC tendered Friday to support it’s declaration of Gov Abdullahi Alhaji Sule.
He confessed to tribunal that elections are only cancelled in the polling units not at the Ward or LG level as did by the electoral commission last March 18th during the Governorship poll in Nasarawa state.
Aliyu Bello who was on the witness box as it was the turn of the second Respondent, A A SULE to defend his case at the tribunal.
Sule’s lead Counsel, Chief Rotimi Adeladu(SAN) who tendered from the bar some documents which includes:
1-37 form EC8As of some affected polling units
2-Forms EC8Bs of 33 Electoral wards of seven Local Government Areas of the state.
3-Form EC8As of 29 polling units of some affected Areas which Gov Sule claims his votes were deducted by unknown forces.
PDP Lead counsel, DR Jibrin Okutepa (SAN) had raised a very fundamental objection to all the above mentioned documents as usual promised to give reasons for the objection during the written address.
However, Adeladun (SAN) called upon Aliyu Bello as Sule’s star witness.
The state Secretary of APC tendered some documents which includes his Voters card, APC Membership card respectively.
All these documents were objected by the PDP Counsel.
Bello further said that some APC votes were not properly collated by the INEC in both forms EC8As and EC8Bs.
During cross examination, even the first Respondent (INEC) insisted no vote was tempered with by INEC.
But Aliyu insisted that APC votes were reduced in so many polling units by INEC.
He said that most of the APC results were wrongly calculated and captured.
He denied that BVAS was used in any of these areas.
The APC witness agreed that elections are only won in the polling units base on Form EC8A results from the polling units.
He also agreed that INEC BVAS IREV is the only source where results can be properly collated.
The APC witness said that he is not aware of the existence of form ECGPU40, the same form INEC tendered yesterday to support it’s declaration of Gov AA Sule.
Base on his confession it’s obvious that elections are only cancelled in the polling units not at the Ward or LG level.
The sitting was adjourned to Thursday, Friday, Sartuday, 24th,25th,26th, August 2023 respectively.
