‘Dead Persons Voted in Abia North Senatorial Poll’

                              Mao Ohuabunwa

The Election Petition Tribunal hearing the petitions arising from the national and state assembly elections was Tuesday told that dead persons were among the voters that participated in the senatorial election in Abia North district.

A principal witness and petitioner in the consolidated petition challenging the outcome of the Abia North senatorial poll, Chief David Ogba Onuoha-Bourdex, made the shocking allegation while being cross-examined in the witness box.

“If you look at the voters register, you will find that even dead people voted. They were supposed to have woken up, voted and then went back to their graves,” he said.

Onuoha-Bourdex, who was the senatorial candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) in the disputed poll, said that it was wrong for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to have declared Senator Mao Ohuabunwa as the winner of that election, saying that he did not score the highest number of lawful voted cast.

Under cross-examination by the counsel to the first respondent, Chief Donald Dee-Wigwe, SAN and his counterpart for INEC, Chief Livy Uzoukwu (SAN), Onuoha-Bourdex insisted that senatorial election was manipulated in favour of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, who has since taken his seat in the Senate.

He said he was the rightful winner of the poll because “if the votes were properly computed, I scored 37,115 lawful votes while the Mao (the declared winner) got 28,800 votes,” adding that the figures were based on the collated votes from the polling units in possession of the polling agents across the five local governments that constitute the Abia North senatorial zone.

According to the petitioner, the ruling PDP had connived with the electoral body to manipulate the outcome of the senatorial poll so much so that the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) had no choice but to set up a panel to investigate the matter.

To buttress his claims of pervasive manipulation of votes, Onuoha-Bourdex cited Ohafia local government where according to him, the first respondent was credited with 13,573 votes out of which 7,500 votes came from just two wards, namely Ndiagbo and Ndielu, where he claimed election did not hold.

He noted that after the panel had reviewed the result it was discovered that he was the rightful winner of the poll and wondered why his opponent was declared winner.

When he was told by the counsel to first respondent that he was not entitle to any of the reliefs sought in his petition, the APGA senatorial candidate insisted that he remained the rightful winner of the poll in Abia North and should be declared so by the tribunal.

He also said he relied firmly on the reports submitted to INEC by collation officers, which he tendered and admitted by the tribunal.

Aside from Onuoha-Bourdex, the Abia North Returning Officer (RO) for the election, Dr Ihekwoaba Chukwugoziem had earlier testified by submitting to the tribunal the report he gave to INEC together with his affidavit of facts.

He did not enter the witness box, which counsel to the petitioner, Chief Chris Uche (SAN), said was because the RO was subpoenaed to appear as witness since he was not listed among the petitioner’s witnesses.