According to the INEC response obtained by SaharaReporters and its desperate moves to cover up all the riggings and frauds for the PDP candidate claimed that the card readers were for verification of voters while the register of voters was the only document for accreditation of voters on the election day.
In a bid to cover up all the frauds and electoral malpractices that marred the April 11, 2015 governorship election in favor of the Delta State governor and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, Mr. Ifeanyi Okowa, the Delta State Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has contradicted itself.
The commission at an ongoing hearing at the Delta State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal in Asaba, Delta State capital stated that the card readers were not meant for accreditations but verifications of voters.
Following public outcry that greeted the Presidential election where INEC abandoned the use of card readers midway to the election, the commission had in a press statement signed by the Commission Secretary, Mrs. Augusta C. Ogakwu, made it clear that card readers will be used for accreditation of voters for the Governorship elections in accordance with the guideline for the 2015 general elections.
According the press statement “The Independent National Electoral Commission wishes to inform all Nigerians that Card Readers will be used for the April 11, 2015 Elections.
But in Delta state INEC statement of defense filed on May, 22, 2015 through its legal counsel, led by D. D. Dodo, SAN, and 7 others, in response to the petition filed by Olorogun O’tega Emerhor, the Delta All Progressives Congress, (APC) governorship candidate in the April 11, 2015 election with petition No: EPT/DT/GOV/32/15 before the Governorship Election Tribunal disowned the sanctity of the card readers and reneged on the electoral guideline and its directives on the use of card readers for accreditation of voters for the conduct of the 2015 general elections.
According to the INEC response obtained by SaharaReporters and its desperate moves to cover up all the riggings and frauds for the PDP candidate claimed that the card readers were for verification of voters while the register of voters was the only document for accreditation of voters on the election day.
“Card Readers are for verification of Voters while Register of Voters is the only document for accreditation of voters on Election Day. From inception it was contemplated that upon the failure of the Card Reader other contingencies will be resorted to in order to ensure that the election is duly conducted and that legitimate voters were not disenfranchised. The ultimate mechanism was to resort to the manual accreditation as provided for by the Electoral Act."
According to INEC, with the challenges presented by the card reader machine, the process of accreditation proceeded as was expressly provided for in the Electoral Act by resorting to manual accreditation, stating that, there were no acts of non-compliance which materially affected the result of the election.
INEC team further stated that operation of the data base of the 3rd Respondent (INEC) does not take into consideration the persons accredited manually in compliance with the express provisions of the Electoral Act; the same INEC gave a certified true copy of record of accredited voters by Card Readers saying that the use of incident forms was equally a matter of instruction at an election and not contemplated by the electoral act.
In the conduct of the governorship election in Delta State, the commission, agreed however that the “Register of voters was the document used by the Respondents (INEC) for the accreditation of Voters while card readers were only used for verification of voters during the elections held on 11th April, 2015 in each of the polling units in each of the 25 Local Government Areas of Delta State."
SaharaReporters has learned through sources at the INEC Headquarters Abuja, that the defense response described as inaccurate has drew the attention of the INEC Chairman, Prof Attahiru Jega and has immediately issued a query to the INEC legal Officer in Delta and this was confirmed by staff at the INEC office in Asaba.
Reacting to the INEC defense response, Delta State APC youth leader, Mr. Monday Oyehge, told Journalists in Asaba that INEC line of defense was nothing but laughable and cannot stand rigorous legal probing which will fall like a pack of card.
"Mr. Ifeanyi Okowa and the PDP will soon be thrown out, because they stole Delta peoples mandate through the back door and Deltans are very ready to reclaim that mandate." Oyehge stated.
It would be recalled that the INEC Approved Guidelines and Regulations for the conduct of 2015 General Elections, on the issue of over voting, states that where, the total number of votes cast at a polling unit exceeds the number of registered voters in the polling unit, the result of the election for that polling unit, shall be declared null and void. Similarly, where the total number of votes cast at a polling unit exceeds the number of accredited voters, the outcome of the election shall be declared null and void.”
Available documents from INEC, Abuja office had revealed that, Okowa of the PDP scored above the true accredited voters with 14,980 votes, without the LP and APC candidate's’ votes.
Again, it was revealed from INEC records that the number of accredited voters transmitted by the card reader to the central data collation system was 709,700 while the number recorded at the Delta state INEC office, Asaba showed 1,017, 796 as the number of accredited voters.
It is also on record that a Certified True Copy (CTC) of Card Readers record obtained by SaharaReporters from INEC Headquarters Abuja, compiled by Engr. Iro Gambo, (Networking and Communications Systems) in ICT department, duly signed by Ibrahim Bawa, Director of Legal INEC HQs, dated April 29th, 2015, showed that there were variations between the INEC records at Abuja and INEC office in Asaba.