Eight other witnesses from Borno and Yobe states on Friday testified before the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal to the effect that election results were transmitted into the server of INEC with sort code provided by the electoral body.
The eight witnesses who testified on Friday for Atiku Abubakar and the PDP are Oseni Haruna, Zakari Ibrahim, Silas Paris, Usman Adamu, Hassan Maisarafa, Peter Sabo, Modu Ahmed and Olufemi Ogunride.
The witnesses corroborated the evidence of the previous witnesses that the February 23, 2019 election was marred with irregularities ranging from severe threat and intimidation of civil servants in the two states to either vote for the All Progressives Congress (APC) or lose their jobs.
The witnesses said that similar threats and intimidation were further extended to farmers in the two states to choose between voting for Buhari and APC or forgo their farmlands, adding that threats and intimidation were carried out by top state government officials including some Local Government chairmen.
In his testimony, Ogunride, who was an ad-hoc staff of INEC during the election, confirmed to the tribunal that he, along with other Assistant Presiding Officers transmitted election results into the server of INEC using smart card reader.
Ogunride also said that two hours to the election, Assistant Presiding Officers were assembled and trained by a consultant to INEC on how to transmit election results into the INEC server with smart card reader, adding that he received his own training on how to transmit election results to server in Abuja.
He admitted that he personally transmitted results provided by the Presiding Officers into INEC’s server.
Under cross examination by counsel to APC, Dr Muiz Banire SAN, the witness confirmed that INEC guidelines and regulations were released to him and others.
In his own evidence, Peter Sabo from Yobe State told the Tribunal that both Buhari and APC used the security challenges in the state to perpetrate election fraud, stressing that voters were mobilized to selected areas to cast their votes instead of their polling units and under the guise by APC of securing their lives.
Sabo also told the Tribunal that PDP agents were chased away at selected voting points after which ballot papers were freely handed over to APC agents to cast unlawful votes, adding that he refused to sign result sheet because the ballot papers used for the purported election were for APC only without a single void votes.
Sabo further testified that he wrote a petition to the DSS, Police and Civil Defense Corp, but that up till date nothing had been done.
In his own evidence Hassan Maisarafa, who named some state government officials that perpetrated alleged election fraud, said that voters in Yobe were bought over with huge sums to sway them to the side of the APC.
Further hearing in the petition continues on Monday, July 15, 2019.
