REVEALED: AKPABIO’S WITNESS WAS NOT A WARD AGENT
***AS PETITIONER AGAIN FAILS TO PRESENT UNIT AGENT AS WITNESS
………..At the resumed sitting of the National Assembly Election Petition Tribunal, sitting in Uyo, Wednesday, Counsel to the Peoples Democratic Party, Solomon Umoh SAN presented before the tribunal that Senator Godswill Akpabio’s witness was not a ward agent.
On cross examination of the witness, PW8, Ubokutom Nyah, an APC Chieftain who claimed to have been a ward agent for Ward 2 during the National Assembly Elections, Umoh mentioned names of authentic ward agents whose names were presented by the APC to the Independent National Electoral Commission to the tribunal.
“Do you know Innocent Micheal in Ekpeyong ward 3, Emmanuel Akpan in Ekpeyong ward 2, Ime Obot Akpan and Ibanga John Ephraim?”
“I do not know them but I know Ime Obot Akpan” the witness said.
“These people were ward agents and I put it to you that your name was not sent to INEC as a ward agent” Umoh added
Counsel to Senator Chris Ekpenyong, Kanu Agabi, SAN, had already alerted the tribunal when he questioned the witness if he is certain his name was submitted to INEC as an agent of the party.
“I was not privy to see the names submitted to INEC but I was given a ward agent tag,” Nya had replied
On Exhibit P415, which was submitted to the tribunal by the witness as election results, Umoh told the tribunal that “the results were not a product of votes of the people in Ekpenyong Ward 2 because elections did not hold due to ballot snatching, thuggery and violence”.
Nyah, who argued with Umoh, that there was accreditation and election in all the units in his ward, however admitted that he only got the results from what he was told by the unit agents.
Nyah, on sighting the Voter’s registers Exhibits R67-R72 agreed before the tribunal that boxes designated for accreditation on the documents were not ticked, he however claimed that they were different from the one used at the election.
As the ongoing fireworks at the election petition tribunal for Akwa Ibom North West between the incumbent senator Chris Ekpenyong and the immediate past senator who represented Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District at the National Assembly, Godswill Akpabio continues, it has been revealed that all the witnesses presented at the tribunal by Akpabio based their submissions on hear say, with no unit agent being presented as witness by the petitioner.
It has also been discovered that all the witnesses presented so far, have a stereotype seven paragraph witness statements with the only difference being their different names.
Our reporter gathered that this accounts for the same pattern of cross examination by the respondents.
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