A witness of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Senator Dino Melaye, Philemon Enoch, has told the Kogi State National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal that there was no over-voting during the Kogi West senatorial election held in the state.
Enoch, a carpenter and the PDP agent in the election, in his evidence before the tribunal over the weekend admitted that ballot boxes were not also snatched during the election.
He said, ”There was no over-voting during the election. No ballot box was snatched in my unit. I was the one who signed the result for PDP during the election.”
The petitioner, Dino Melaye, had called in some of his witnesses to buttress his case at the tribunal challenging the outcome of the November 30, 2019 rerun election won by Senator Smart Adeyemi; alleging that there was mayhem and manipulation at the poll.
But some of the evidences from the petitioner’s witnesses, who were party agents, indicated the contrary.
Another witness called by the petitioner, Ishaq AbdulRahaman, also a PDP agent, admitted that voting, accreditation and counting of votes were peacefully done without intimidation and harassment.
A farmer, and another party agent, Gimba Timothy, who testified for the petitioner, said he could not remember PDP’s score in that election in unit 008 where he acted as agent.
He also said he did not take a look at the result sheet before signing it.
When challenged by Senator Adeyemi’s lawyer, Dr. Dapo Otitoju, that he was never an agent of the party since he could not remember the score of his party at the election, he insisted that he was the agent.
”I could not remember what my party scored at the election because it has been a long time the election took place,” he insisted.
Also, at the tribunal sitting, a mild drama ensued when some of the petitioner’s witnesses denied their statement on oath.
At the hearing of the petition, one of the witnesses, who gave his name as Magi Abraham Shade, dealt a blow to their case when he mentioned that he was from Okedayo rather than Kakun that was in his written statement.
While being cross examined, Dr. Otitoju demanded for the witness to sign his signature; but it was found different from the one appended on his written address.
The witness also made another gaffe when he stated that he was PDP ward collation agent during the election, though he did his voters’ card registration in Kaduna and later transferred it to Kabba.
Counsel to the All Progressives Congress (APC), Barr. Abdulahi also queried the witness to identified himself from the voters register, but the picture of the person he claimed was entirely different from his own portrait.
