The Justice Wilfred Kpochi-led, three-member Edo governorship election petitions tribunal witnessed mild drama when the first two of the witnesses of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its governorship candidate during the September 21, 2024 election Dr Asue Ighodalo flopped under cross examination.The first witness from Ikpoba-Okha Local Government Area of Edo stunned the tribunal when he testified that he was neither an agent at any of the polling units or wards nor directly involved in the electoral process......Read The Full Article>>.....Read The Full Article>>
He claimed his role was limited to merely observing and examining the results in a situation room, thereby raising questions about the accuracy and credibility of the evidence he presented.
He confirmed signing two statements on oath dated October 11, 2024, and November 16, 2024, and clarified his involvement was limited to overseeing results at the situation room, which was not located at the collation centre.Under cross-examination, the first witness also admitted that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) materials were not available for inspection in the situation room.
The second witness from Akoko-Edo LGA claimed that he was not a polling unit or ward agent but managed to coordinate all the results from 241 polling units and ten wards in a single day, while admitting that he was not involved in the actual collation of results of the poll, but only supervised and compiled reports from agents.
Seven of 18 political parties that participated in the election, which filed petitions at the tribunal, were the PDP, Social Democratic Party (SDP), Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), Action Democratic Party (ADP), Accord (A), Allied Peoples Movement (APM), and Action Alliance (AA), which wanted their candidates to be declared winner of the keenly-contested poll, instead of Okpebholo of APC.
