Caretaker Committee Chairman of Edo State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr Tony Aziegbemi, has given reason why the party is confident of victory at the ongoing Governorship Election Petition Tribunal.
Speaking on Arise News Television on Monday night, Aziegbemi stated that the petition presented by the party challenging the declaration of Senator Monday Okpebholo as winner of the September 21, 2024, guber election was in a class of its own. He stressed that the petition is different from what Nigerians are used to.
In his words: “I am confident that PDP would be declared winner of that election because of the evidence we’ve produced. This petition is the first of its kind in this country; where we are not pleading financial inducement, we are not pleading ballot box snatching, we are not pleading any of those things that will be difficult for you to prove.
“We are bringing to the judiciary, the tribunal specifics. If the law says where the number of votes cast is more than the number of accredited voters, and such is authenticated by the BVAS extract, it means the unit’s result must be cancelled because of over voting. These are things you can place your fingers on and say if it happened and you can prove that it happened and you have documents to show that it happened, because INEC certified all those documents for us. That is where our confidence stems from. And that is why I said this petition is unique.”
Reacting to the only witness presented by Governor Okpebholo, who surprisingly confirmed that there was indeed over voting in his unit, Dr Aziegbemi said “The witness Senator Monday Okpebholo brought today is from Ovia South West, we used him to authenticate what we have been saying that there was over voting in 133 polling units and he has agreed to our petition today that yes, there was over voting. So, we used him to drive home our point. Yes, we used him to drive home our point and he agreed that there was over voting. Before now we had told them that if you are a witness coming in for the APC, Okpebholo or INEC, make sure that you know that Kuje Prison is not very far from the venue of the Tribunal because if you lie under oath, that is perjury. We established with him today the principle of over voting. That once you have the Form EC8a and you have the BVAS extract, you can determine over voting. And that is what the guy helped to do and we are very thankful to him,” Aziegbemi declared.
In a stunning twist at the ongoing Justice Wilfred Kpochi led three man tribunal on Monday, Governor Okpebholo’s legal team hurriedly closed his case after the only witness he called, Usman Majek, buckled under intense cross examination by counsels to the petitioners, the PDP and its candidate, Dr Asue Ighodalo, by confirming that indeed there was over voting in his unit.
The counsel to the APC that was due to take the floor next, made a quick detour and pleaded for an adjournment till tomorrow, Wednesday, February 12.
