Dead persons voted at Anambra senatorial poll—Witness

The Anambra State Election Petition Tribunal sitting
in Awka, resumed hearing on August 19, 2015 in the
petition by Engr. Ernest Ndukwe, former Nigerian

Communication Commission, NCC, boss and All
Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, senatorial
candidate in the March 28 senatorial election in
Anambra South senatorial zone.
Earlier in the proceedings, the petitioners’ witnesses
had testified and tendered duplicate original copies
of result sheets in customised form, which they
retrieved from election officials from the field
immediately after the election, and which copies
were also given to the security agencies, showing that
Engr. Ndukwe had majority of the lawful votes cast at
the election.
The witnesses, who were polling agents in the
elections, denied knowledge of the use of any “non-
customized” result sheets (written in long hand
instead of printed) or “Voting Point, VP” result sheets
produced by Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC, officials as the results for the
same election.
One of the petitioners’ witnesses, Chief Orajiaka,
former Special Adviser to the state governor and
community leader in Uli, during cross examination,
said that no election was conducted in Uli ward 1, and
threw the whole court into laughter when asked
about the voters’ register purportedly used for the
election in Uli ward 1 and Lilu ward.
He said: “It will be a disaster for democracy to
declare that election took place in the two wards,”
adding that even the voters’ register uploaded by
INEC contains the names of dead people, who
allegedly voted in the elections conducted by INEC in
Uli and Lilu.”
Engr. Ndukwe, had under cross examination, stated
that he was in the tribunal to have a recalculation of
the scores of the election from legitimate result
sheets.
He stated that “in the recalculation, every result on
voting point result sheet has to be excluded and
every result on non-customised result sheet is a no
go area.”
He questioned how INEC could write the results of an
entire ward on “Voting Point” result sheets when
original customised result sheets were provided for
all polling units.
He bemoaned the conduct of some INEC staff in
election generally and wondered whether as an
organization, there were no internal mechanisms in
INEC for checking the activities and excesses of
errant staff.
Ndukwe, is challenging the declaration of Senator
Andy Ubah as winner of the election by INEC, and had
stated in his deposition that Senator Ubah was not
qualified to contest the election, having serially
submitted to INEC suspected forged certificates.
Ndukwe, specifically said, under cross examination by
Senator Ubah’s counsel, that he was surprised that it
was Ubah’s lawyers that presented in open court, the
controversial Senior Secondary School Certificate
submitted by Ubah to INEC.
Ndukwe stated that the certificate could not have
been authentic because as at the date in 1974 when
the certificate was purported to have been issued,
“there was no senior school certificate in Nigeria. If
there was no such educational policy in 1974, then
the certificate is obviously not genuine.”
Ndukwe, who called 13 witnesses, had closed his case
and the respondents were expected to open their
defence at the resumption of the case.