The All Progressives Congress (APC) has accused the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) of trying to sabotage proceedings at the tribunal.
Counsel to the party’s governorship candidate in the state, Victor Iyanam made the allegation in Abuja.
Iyanam specifically alleged that the electoral body poured water on the one million ballot papers making it more difficult for the required forensic examination to be carried out.
The APC candidate Umanah Umanah took the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Emmanuel Udom to the tribunal after he was declared winner of the April 11, 2015, governorship election by INEC. The forensic exercise set to start on Friday July 10 at 8:30am at the Independent Electoral Institute in Central Business District, Abuja, was again stalled due to the late arrival of the Director of Legal, INEC Uyo.
Although he arrived late at the venue of the exercise, he insisted that the order from the court must be obeyed.
Consequently, an argument ensued between the Forensic Team, INEC Uyo Head of legal, Attorney General, Akwa Ibom State and petitioner’s lawyer on the application of the order. The Head of Legal, INEC Uyo, vehemently opposed the use of scanners and insisted that the court order does not allow for scanning but just to inspect.
He argued that if they insist on scanning, then they should go and get a court order stating that scanning should be part of the forensic exercise. He also argued that the forensic team cannot have an unlimited amount of assistants to help with the work and they must have equal number of assistants on all sides both those observing (from the respondents angle) and the team actually conducting the forensic exercise. The head of legal INEC Uyo also tried to resist the presence of media and claimed they did not have clearance.
The media crew from Channels refuted such claims about clearance as the Tribunal is a public case and the Electoral Institute is also a public body and unless the meetings being held were private, the media had the right to cover anything in the interest of the public.
After much argument, INEC Uyo’s interpretation of the court order prevailed since the materials remain officially in their custody. Also the forensic team and petitioner were told at about 1pm that scanning will definitely not be allowed but they would be allowed to photocopy any relevant documents.
As the ballot papers could not be photocopied, the forensic team requested for the result sheets and EC forms to at least make photocopies and they were told those materials were not brought in, that only the ballot papers were brought from Uyo. This explanation was found to be strange given that the court order insisted that all materials be brought in from Abuja. INEC on July 6, had requested a letter from the petitioner to allow the forensic team start work, which they received same day.
Umanah’s counsel alleged that on Tuesday July 7, the commission “requested that to proceed with examination they need the legal officer from Uyo, who accompanied the election materials to Abuja to return. The legal officer had dumped the materials after hours on Friday and returned to Uyo, without handing them over officially to anyone. Procedurally, they have to wait for the legal officer from Uyo to handover the materials, which at this point could take another day. At this rate the forensic team might not be able to get examine the materials on time.”
He noted that it takes two to three weeks to properly examine the materials and “in this case we are looking at about 1million ballot papers. The worst part is that the process to examine the evidence has been made harder by INEC officials, who squeezed the papers like trash and poured water on them. This means the ballot papers will have to be straightened out and dried to be able to scan them electronically for examination.
