The All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday, in Abuja, tendered conflicting election results on the November 11, 2023 governorship election in Bayelsa State.
The conflicting results were tendered at the Bayelsa State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Abuja.
While INEC tendered its own certified results, the APC polling unit agents tendered various results in respect of the places they represented the party.
However, different parties objected to the two conflicting results. The Chairman of the tribunal, Justice Adekunle Adeleye, admitted them as exhibits for the tribunal consideration during the hearing of the petition.
A former Minister of Petroleum, Timipre Sylva, and his party, APC, had dragged INEC, Governor Douye Diri, his Deputy, Lawrence Ewhirujakpo, and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) before the tribunal.
The petitioners are praying the tribunal to hold elections held in three different local councils where INEC claimed that elections were not conducted due to alleged diversion of election materials and disruptions of election process on grounds of bypass of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine.
The affected three local councils are, Southern Ijaw, Ogbia and Nembe.
At the commencement of the hearing, an APC polling unit agent, Odungele Moses, adopted his witness statement on oath, which he deposed on December 1, 2023.
Led in evidence by counsel to the petitioners, Tunde Falola, the witness maintained that the election took place in his polling unit 15, ward 4 and tendered a result, which he claimed, was issued to him by the INEC presiding officer.
However, during cross examination by counsel to Diri, Chris Uche, the witness admitted that although 16 political parties participated in the governorship election, only APC, which he represented as an agent, signed the result he tendered.
He did not give reasons 15 others did not sign.
Another witness, Mallory Afin, who also testified for the petitioners, tendered APC results, which had the same serial number and number of accredited voters with that of INEC but had different numbers of votes recorded for different political parties.
