The All Progressives Congress (APC) Benue South senatorial candidate, Mr. Daniel Onjeh, has asked the Justice Mosumola Dipeolu- led National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal in Makurdi to nullify the March 28 senatorial election in Benue South and order a fresh election.
He spoke yesterday during the adoption of the final addresses of the parties in his petition challenging the election of Senator David Mark of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
According to the petitioner, who had tendered documents, including his written statement on oath and certified true copies of the result sheets from the nine local governments to prove his case during the hearing, the result forms produced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) did not reflect the votes cast during the poll in the zone.
Counsel to Onjeh, Mr. Tunji Oso, said in all cases, the addition of the number of successfully-accredited and the number of failed accreditation recorded by the card reader at each polling unit must not exceed the number of votes cast at that polling unit.
He said in the instant case, while the total number of people allegedly accredited in the election was 166,633 by form EC8D(i) Exhibit B3 P.DC1, the total number of voters, who were either successfully accredited (87,819) or whose voter cards were verified by card reader, but whose finger prints card reader failed to authenticate (58,607) by Exhibit P.B40 was 146,426.
Oso argued that the implication of the above non-compliance was that the total votes of parties in the election were vitiated and tainted with over 20,000 ghost, accredited and unidentified persons.
He alleged that Mark was prophetically declared the winner by INEC on March 28 while collation of results was still ongoing in seven local governments in the zone on March 29.
Oso further alleged that there was no evidence of holding of election or collation in 107 polling units across the senatorial zone, as form EC8A(1) for the polling units was not produced by INEC.
He submitted that the results of seven local governments, namely Agatu, Obi, Okpokwu, APA, Ado, Ogbadibo and Oju, which were proved to be collated on March 29, could not be part of the votes upon which Mark was returned since he was declared winner on March 28.
Oso enjoined the tribunal to expunge the votes of the identified local governments from the total votes of parties where Mark supposedly polled 99,538 votes, while Onjeh scored 50,115.
He said the votes were only collated in Ohimini and Otukpo councils where Onjeh polled 16,033 votes, while Mark scored 27,137 votes.
The petitioner’s counsel insisted that more than half of the votes cast and more than half of the polling units where elections were supposed to have been held were vitiated and invalidated.
He urged the tribunal to nullify the election and order for a fresh poll, saying it was a settled law that where more than half of the total votes cast or half of the total polling units was vitiated, the tribunal ought to nullify the election.
However, counsel to Mark, Mr. Kenneth Ikonne, enjoined the tribunal to dismiss the petition, arguing that the allegations in the petition were criminal in nature and the onus rested on the petitioner to prove them.
He said the petitioner alleged irregularities, malpractices, allocation of votes, multiplication of figures, over-voting, over accreditation and concoction of results, but failed to prove his case.
PDP’s lawyer, Mr. Chris Alechenu, aligned himself with the submissions of Ikonne and urged the tribunal to dismiss the petition.
The tribunal Chairman, Justice Mosumola Dipeolu, hailed the parties and told them that the judgment date would be communicated to them through the tribunal’s secretary.
