The
defence of the victory of the PDP and Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s in the
April 2015 governorship polls today got a boost at the electoral tribunal with
the INEC staff affirming strict compliance with the electoral guidelines.
At
the resumed hearing of the matter today, Okowa’s third witness, Mrs. Mercy
Ehikhametalo , an INEC staff , led in evidence by the lead counsel to the
governor Dr. Alex Izyion (SAN) , told the tribunal that electoral guidelines
were substantially complied with during the governorship election in the State.
She
said card readers were used during the election and that about 67.7 percent of
data from the card reader were uploaded into saver in Abuja head office before
the saver was shutdown.
She
also told the tribunal that INEC experienced some challenges with the use of
the card readers during the elections, due to poor network from service
providers.
She
said the card reader had pin cards from Abuja and cannot be fraudulently
manipulated, adding that during network failure, the card reader could upload
data to their server in Abuja.
She
insisted that during the just concluded governorship election, neither the
contestants nor the political parties tempered with the card readers.
Also,
against the claims of the petitioners, she told the tribunal that, it was after
the elections that the INEC staff uploaded results from the polling units to
the saver at their headquarters in Abuja, stressing that uploading of data was
not automatic neither was it done simultaneously.
Ehikhametalo
informed the tribunal that, some polling units with large number of voters were
provided with more than one card reader to ensure that all eligible voters
voted during the election.
The
witness also told the tribunal that INEC embarked on training of ad -hoc staff
on the use of the card reader and that not much mistakes were recorded during
the election that could affect the outcome of the election.
Earlier,
the tribunal delivered a ruling in which, some documents were admitted while
few others were rejected, Justice Nasiru adjourned further hearing on the
matter to 16th September, 2015.
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