A Forensic Examiner, Samuel Oduntan on Thursday told the Osun State Election Petition Tribunal that there were over-voting in six polling units during the July 16 governorship election in the State.
Another witness, Reverend Bunmi Jenyo, who identified himself to be a Personal Assistant to Governor Adeleke also testified that Adeleke obtained his Diploma Certificate in Penn Foster High School on 16th July, 2021 and Graduation from Atlanta Metropolitan College on 9th of August 2021 where he obtained his first degree.
The two witnesses testified before the Justice Tertsea Kume-led tribunal at the resumed hearing of the petition filed by Mr. Adegboyega Oyetola and the All Progressives Congress (APC) against the declaration of Ademola Adeleke as the governor of the state.
Oduntan, while giving evidence in defence of Adeleke’s declaration said, he was paid by Adeleke to extract information through physical inspection of BVAS Machines used for the election and compared it with the form EC8 series where he discovered that over-voting occured in some polling units, particularly six units in Ede South.
The witness told the panel that in Ward 4 unit 7, of Ede South, the accreditation figure he mentioned in his witness statement was 313, while the accreditation on the BVAS report was 383, which showed over-voting.
Effort of the Adeleke’s counsel, Onyeachi Ikpeazu SAN to prevent the witness from making comparison on the BVAS report and the result announced to show over-voting was overruled by the tribunal following the arguments of the petitioners’ counsel, Akin Olujinmi SAN that there was no law preventing him from cross-examining the witness.
The witness also testified that for ward 4 unit 8 of Ede South Local Government, the accreditation figure on the witness statement was 830, while the accreditation figure on BVAS report presented by INEC was 793, showing the over-voting of 37.
He said though, he did not work as INEC official on the election day, but carried out physical inspection of the BVAS machines where he carried out his analysis.
Also in his evidence, Reverend Jenyo, who appeared thereafter, before the tribunal and tendered Adeleke’s certificates, bearing Penn Foster High School and Atlanta Metropolitan State College.
Claiming that part of his responsibility as Adeleke’s P.A was to keep his personal documents, he said he has never worked in any of the institutions purported to have been attended by the Governor.
He added that though his International Passport does not show he attended Adeleke’s graduation in US, but he claimed that he attended the Graduation ceremony.
After the Cross examination of the two witnesses, the Adeleke’s counsel closed his case.
Subsequently, counsel for PDP, Alex Izinyon SAN also opened his case and told the panel that he would not be calling any witness but would be relying on the evidence of the two other respondents.
He then tendered some documents and closed his case.
The tribunal then adjourned till January 13, 2023 for the parties in the matter to adopt their final written addresses, as the respondents were granted nine days to file written addresses, petitioners to file addresses within seven days and respondents to file reply on point of law within three days respectively.
