Tuesday, March 11, 2008


Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Ondo: LP shocks tribunal with evidence
From Niyi Bello, Akure
FOR a long while, the audience inside Court Two at the Akure High Court premises, venue of the Election Petition Tribunal, watched in studied silence as the Labour Party (LP) candidate in the polls, Dr. Olusegun Mimiko displayed revelations concerning the voters' register used for the last governorship exercise.
A witness, Waheed Yussuf, 49, who claimed to be an expert in the science of photography, was called by Mimiko to convince the tribunal that the election was marred by a lot of irregularities.
The tribunal in June 2007 granted the petitioner leave to scan materials used by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the elections to find evidence to support his claim of rigging in 10 out of the 18 councils in the state.
Last week after a debate over the admissibility of the findings and the appearance of the eight experts on the LP's witness list played out with the legal teams of the state Governor, Dr. Olusegun Agagu's, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), INEC and Police opposing, the tribunal ruled that it had no choice but take the evidence found as a result of its earlier order.
Led in evidence by Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), Yussuf had identified and adopted an affidavit he deposed to last month that he was commissioned by Mimiko to assist a team of experts to identify by means of electronic scanning all the irregularities in the documents for presentation as evidence of faults in the electoral exercise.
The revelations begged questions of INEC's electronic system of registration.
The LP, which cried out when the process of registration began that many Direct Data Capture Machines used in the exercise were hidden in the homes of prominent PDP personalities to lay the foundation of rigging, said its position has been justified by the revelations.
And to prove the allegations that rigging began during the voters' registration exercise and demonstrate the failure of the electronic registration method, Olanipekun, through Yussuf, disclosed that pictures of prominent Nigerians and foreigners, were trapped in the voters' register under fake names.
Among the pictures, alleged to have been lifted from calendars, almanacs, newspapers and record albums (all of which were admitted and tendered as exhibits), were those of Justice Idris Kutigi, the Chief Justice of the Federation, which was registered as belonging to 69-year old Michael Kolawole with voter's card number 30301601780, which was used to vote at Motor Park Polling Unit in Ayetoro Registration Area of Akure North council.
The pictures of former Minister of Health, Eyitayo Lambo, former heavyweight boxing champion, Mike Tyson, Managing Director Oceanic Bank, Mrs Cecilia Ibru, Governor of Central Bank of Nigeria, Prof. Charles Soludo, Mrs Sarah Jubril, fuji musician Wasiu Ayinde and fellow musician Sola Allyson. Each was registered with different name and voter's card numbers, also appeared on cards used to vote at the same unit with the one bearing the picture of Kutigi.
At the Town Hall polling unit, Ayetoro Registration Area of Akure North council, the pictures of the Vice President Goodluck Jonathan, former National Chairman of PDP Ahmadu Ali, INEC Chairman, Prof. Maurice Iwu, Chairman Honeywell Group, Oba Otudeko, Gen. Oladipo Diya, boxing legend, Mohammed Alli, governors of Lagos and Anambra, Raji Fashola and Peter Obi, PDP gubernatorial candidate in Lagos State, Musiliu Obanikoro, OPC leader, Fredrick Faseun, and newspaper columnists Segun Gbadegesin and Sam Omatseye, were fixed to used voter's cards.
While card number 30301601907 bearing the photograph of Jonathan has the name of Bola Ogunbuyide, a 47-year old civil servant as the owner, those of Ali and Iwu have the names of 40-year old Samuel Idowu and 47-year old Akin Abayomi respectively.
Pictures of late public figures also featured in the exhibits presented by the witness. Prominent among them is that of Apostle Joseph Ayo Babalola, founder of the Christ Apostolic Church who died in 1949 but whose photograph bore the name of Oke Ademola, a 57-year old businessman.
Also included among the pictures of living or late clerics were those of Pastors D.O Odubanjo, I.O Eyebiokin and S.O Komolafe, which were affixed with the names: Sola Daniel, Oyewole Ade and Joseph Akintolarin who with that bearing the photograph of Babalola, allegedly voted at polling unit 17 at the Apoi Registration Area of the riverine Ese-Odo council.
Also presented by the witness was evidence of multiple registration of same names or same pictures bearing different names. For instance, card number 90900300158 bore the same photograph with card number 90900300234 and 90900300158 but with different names of Ahmed Alade, Azeez Alade and Silifat Olawale with age ranging from 24 to 30 and sex swinging from female to male in the three exhibits.
There were also other irregularities such as disparity in age as shown in card number 9090080032 with the data of an 18-year old female student named Deborah Adetutu but affixed with the picture of a septuagenarian and another card bearing the number 91001200216, which has the data of 64-year old Clement Ogbese but with the photograph of a teenager in school uniform.
Hundreds of photographs of under-aged children and even toddlers as shown in card number 90301202037 bearing the picture of a crawling baby with the data of 30-year old Ade Olu, who allegedly voted in unit 12 of Igbotako in Okitipupa council were also presented and admitted as exhibits.
Almost all the names listed in the voters' register for Polling Unit 13, Idiogba in Ugbo Ward 2 of Ilaje council and those of unit 10, Oke-Oluwa Zion Centre in Agbabu, Odigbo council, where almost a 100 per cent voter participation took place, were affixed with the photographs of under-aged children who were made to put on headgears to conceal their looks.
Particularly in Iju-Odo, hometown of Agagu, more than 50 per cent of the pictures that appeared on the used voters' cards belong to infants between the ages of 18 and 73.
There were also instances of non-human photographs of doors, windows, ceilings, chairs and even litterbins that were credited with human data who allegedly voted while the list containing the voters in polling unit 2 of Odeke/Aisa/Assi in Akoko North East council had no photograph at all.
Describing the disclosures as a just a peep into the electoral fraud that was allegedly perpetrated during the governorship elections, Olanipekun tendered in evidence several portions of the result forms where high votes were recorded, through the votes of these flawed lists, for Agagu and the PDP.
Earlier, the LP through its witnesses, presented about 75, 000 unused voters' cards that it claimed belonged to disenfranchised voters who were prevented from voting because of the disruptions allegedly caused by PDP and its agents.
The party also presented evidence where all the cards, which it claimed were retrieved from their owners on election day were shown to have voted with.
The PDP legal team tried to discredit the evidence by attempting to question the integrity and non-partisan nature of the expert witnesses some of whom failed to weather the storm of intense scrutiny during cross examination.
Led by Lateef Fagbemi (SAN), Agagu's lawyers, with the legal team of the PDP, INEC and Police, said they were going to raise serious objections to the admissibility of the evidence and findings and the integrity of the witnesses.
The tribunal had ruled that every evidence and exhibit tendered would be accepted without prejudice to the position of the opposing team until the end of oral submissions when oppositions can be made.
Claiming not to be perturbed with the new revelations, the Ondo State Commissioner for Information and Orientation, Eddy Olafeso who was the State Secretary of the PDP during the polls, said, "what was said to be a major discovery was nothing but scattered anomalies that are normal in an exercise of that magnitude.
"Because some discrepancies were seen in Akure North and a couple of other places does not render the electoral exercise invalid because we cannot take it as the generality of the whole exercise.
"Any human exercise is bound to have minor hitches. We are not angels and we see these things even in advanced democracies. The important thing is to have a process that represents the aspirations of the majority of the people, which the exercise in Ondo has achieved."