The All Progressives Congress (APC’s) witness in the ongoing governorship election petition sitting in Lafia, Nasarawa State, Aliyu Bello, has said votes in some wards across the state were depleted to deny the incumbent a return during the March 18 poll.
He said during cross examination at the resumed hearing of the tribunal yesterday that contrary to the claim by PDP in its petition that APC inflated figures to give Governor Sule victory, the opposition party was rather guilty of the allegation.
He said he was aware that INEC canceled elections for Ashige electoral ward in Lafia local government area following which the electoral body issued Form EC40G to that effect.
On the complaint by the petitioners that their votes in Gayam, Chiroma in Lafia LGA and Kanje Abuni and Azara, in Awe LGA were reduced by the INEC, Bello said nobody touched the petitioners votes in the mentioned areas and that what the petitioners scored was what was recorded for them.
On the tables tendered by the petitioners on pages 49 to 51 of their petition where they claim that by their computation, they were leading by 4130 votes, Bello who is also the APC secretary in the state, said the table was incorrect as it contains instances where votes scored by the second respondent were reduced and additions to the number of votes scored by the petitioners.
He said the vote of APC in Kofar Alhaji Mukhtar was 160 but it was recorded as 65, in Angwan Nupuwa Polling unit 006 APC had 200 but 184 was captured in form EC8 B at the Ward Collation Level.
He also said in Angwan Tudun Kofa Polling Unit APC scored 152 but it was reduced by 16 votes , adding that the votes of APC have been shortchanged in most polling units across the State.
Bello confirmed that there were a lot of wrong calculation and exclusion of votes of the All Progressives Congress, APC and the score of his party was allocated to the PDP.
He listed form EC8 As of some Polling Units where he said the votes of APC were not properly collated during the election.
He also said that he mentioned form EC8 Bs of some Polling Units where the scores of APC were not properly captured during collation of election results for the governorship election, adding that he listed form EC8 B of some Polling Units where the PDP depleted the figure of his party.
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