Shina Peller, Accord candidate for Oyo North Senatorial District, on Thursday, told the National Assembly Election Petitions Tribunal in Ibadan that there were discrepancies in the Feb. 25 election results declared by INEC.
Peller stated this while being cross-examined by INEC’s Counsel, Mr Osita Mbamalu.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Peller had filed a petition before the tribunal challenging the INEC’s declaration of Sen. Fatai Buhari of All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner of senatorial district’s election after polling 90,074 votes.
NAN also reports that other respondents in the petition are: INEC, APC, PDP and its candidate, Akinwale Akinwole.
Peller, who is also a star witness in the petition, said that the senatorial district has 13 local government areas,134 wards and 1,864 polling units, adding that his party had agents in all the polling units.
He said that some of his party agents came to the party’s situation room after counting of votes with the election results, while some did not come with it because they were not given.
The witness said that there were alterations on some of the results brought by his party agents, while some were also mutilated.
He said that the election were not free and fair, as there were discrepancies, adding that he was at the tribunal to challenge the result because INEC did not do a good job.
Peller, while being cross-examined by the APC Counsel, Mr Kazeem Gbadamosi, SAN, also said that there were missing results in some council areas within the senatorial district.
He further told the court that he disagreed with some of the results declared by INEC in some local government areas of the senatorial district because of the alterations, over-voting and mutilation.
Peller said that he won the senatorial district’s election based on his calculation, adding that the result declared by INEC was wrong.
Two other witnesses called by the petitioner’s counsel, Rasaq Kamarudeen and Festus Olamide, also told the tribunal that there were over-voting in some of the polling units they monitored.
Kamaldeen, who said he worked as the party’s ward collation agent for ward 1 and 2 in Irepo LGA, informed the tribunal that scores were not recorded for Accord in some polling units.
He said that some of the collated results were missing and that INEC did not give result to some agents of the party.
INEC’s counsel, Mbamalu, told the tribunal that he would not be calling any witness in the matter.
APC’s counsel, Gbadamosi, informed the tribunal that he had two witnesses to be called and prayed for a 30-minute stand-down to enable him sort out some documents.
The Tribunal Chairman, Justice H. Njoku, thereafter, stood down the matter for continuation. (NAN)
