Vanguard, contacted the legal adviser to the PDP, Jerry Egemba, over the report to know whether INEC, has accepted those evidence presented at the tribunal.
Egemba quickly said: “It is not true that INEC, has accepted the evidence presented by Hope Uzodinma and the Police, I tell you INEC, has objected to those evidence both in the tribunal and in the open.”
Also responding, for that of APC, the legal adviser, Cyprain Akaolisa, said that INEC, has “conceded” on the matter regarding it’s failure to come up with any witness to challenge the results evidence said to have been omitted in the original results of the elections.
According to Akaolisa, “INEC is suppose to call their witnesses but INEC refused to call any witness and closed their case and therefore leaving that evidence unchallenged by INEC, it will not be right to say INEC, has accepted but for the fact they did not call evidence they have conceded.
“The use of the word accepted is different from the use of the word conceded. So, what it means is that ,INEC, has not contradicted the evidence presented to the tribunal of the 388 polling unit results that are now the issue. The serial numbers which fall in the same materials which the INEC, distributed.”
It will be recalled that the Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Owerri, has admitted results in 388 polling units alleged to have been omitted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, during the governorship election of March 9th, 2019, which produced Ihedioha of the, PDP, a winner.
The 2019 governorship candidate of the ,APC, Hope Uzodinma, (Petitioner) who was led to the witness box by his counsel, Olusola Oke SAN, tendered the results before the tribunal which were accepted as exhibit by the tribunal.
Uzodinma claimed was that the said March 9th 2019 governorship election results not included in the results declared were that of Ngor Okpala, Oguta, Obowo, Ikeduru, Oru East, Oru West, Oguta, Ohaji/Egbema among others.”
Also, the governorship election tribunal also admitted in evidence the 366 polling units results alleged to have been excluded from the 2019 Imo state governorship final results that saw the declaration of Ihedioha of the ,PDP, winner of the election in the state.
The evidence was tendered before the tribunal by the Deputy Commissioner of Police, DCP, Rabiu Huseini, incharge of operations in Imo state, during the elections.
