Ekiti Election Tribunal: Witnesses claim PDP votes voided
News & Trends •
the petitioners the peoples democratic party pdp and its candidate in the ekiti july 14 governorship election prof. olusola kolapo had approached the tribunal to challenge the outcome of the election2 according to the witness i was there when they deliberately voided the pdps votes in unit 9 ward 4 ido -osi lga. the male polling clerk of inec voided 27 voteshe said1 bankole stated this while testifying before the tribunal headed by justice suleiman belgore sitting at the fct high court apo1 a petitioners witness on tuesday told the ekiti election petition tribunal that votes for the peoples democratic party pdpwere deliberately voided by staff of inec during the july 14 governorship election1 the respondents in the suit are the independent national electoral commission inec all progressives congress apc and gov. kayode fayemi1 answering a question during cross examination by abiodun owonikoko san counsel to apc bankole stated that his party scored more than 119 votes during the election in his unit1 the witness omobulujo bankole specifically said that the pdp votes were voided in unit 009 ward 4 of ido -osi local government area1 meanwhile the petitioners called five witnesses on tuesday bringing the total number of witnesses called so far to 691 the witnesses informed the tribunal in their written statements on oath which they adopted as their testimony before the tribunal of deliberate voiding of votes by inec officers and over voting in their respective polling units where they served as pdp agents1 during a cross examination by inec counsel a witness yisa ibrahim pw66 from ado ekiti lga informed the tribunal that he was at his unit throughout the election adding that pdp polled 362 votes while apc scored 1921 he stated that counting was done based on thumb printing and defined voided votes as votes that cannot be counted for any party1 he also said that only inec has the power to declare a vote voided but insisted that inec staff voided votes that were for pdp during the election1