Governor Ifeanyi Okowa’s defence of his victory in the April 2015 Governorship polls, Monday, got a boost at the electoral tribunal with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) staff affirming strict compliance with the electoral guidelines.
At the resumed hearing of the matter, Okowa’s third witness, Mrs. Mercy Ehikhametalo, an INEC staff, led in evidence by the lead counsel to the governor Dr. Alex Izyion (SAN), told the tribunal that electoral guidelines were substantially complied with during the governorship election in the state.
She said card readers were used during the election and that about 67.7 percent of data from the card reader were uploaded into saver in Abuja head office before the saver was shutdown.
She also told the tribunal that INEC experienced some challenges with the use of the card readers during the elections, due to poor net work from service providers.
She said the card reader had pin cards from Abuja and cannot be fraudulently manipulated, adding that during net work failure, the card reader could upload data to their saver in Abuja.
She insisted that during the just concluded governorship election, neither the contestants nor the political parties tempered with the card readers.
Also, against the claims of the petitioners, she told the tribunal that, it was after the elections that the INEC staff uploaded results from the polling units to the saver at their head quarters in Abuja, stressing that uploading of data was not automatic neither was it done simultaneously.
Ehikhametalo informed the tribunal that, some polling units with large number of voters were provided with more than one card reader to ensure that all eligible voters voted during the election.
The witness also told the tribunal that INEC embarked on training of ad -hoc staff on the use of the card reader and that not much mistakes were recorded during the election that could affect the outcome of the election.
Earlier, the tribunal delivered a ruling were some documents were admitted while few others were rejected, Justice Nasiru has adjourned further hearing on the matter to 16th September, 2015.
