Politics
INEC admits there was ‘seeming over-voting’ in Osun election
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has admitted that there was “seeming over-voting” during the Osun State gubernatorial election held on July 16.
A Deputy Director, Information Communication Technology with INEC, Abimbola Oladunjoye, who made the admission on Wednesday, cited a situation in a polling unit in Ede South local government area which contradicted the number of accredited voters on the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) report presented by INEC.
Oladunjoye who was a key witness for INEC at the resumed hearing of the state electoral tribunal, under cross-examination by the petitioners’ lead counsel, Akin Olujinmi (SAN), was shown her witness statement, where the number of accredited voters in the polling unit, said the discrepancy could only have come from over-voting from both parties.
READ ALSO:APC accuses Gov Adeleke of using N941.8m to buy Christmas rice for PDP members in Osun
In her deposition, the INEC Director said the number of accredited voters in Ward 4 Unit 7, Ede South was 388, but in the RBVR, being a BVAS report tendered by INEC, the number of accredited voters was put at 313, saying there was seemingly over voting by 75.
The counsel also referred the witness to paragraph 21.36 of her witness statement, where the accreditation figure was put at 830, but on the BVAS report, the accreditation figure was said to be 793.
Under re-examination by INEC’s counsel, Prof Paul Ananaba (SAN), Oladunjoye explained that she used the word ‘seemingly over-voting’ because over-voting could not be established until when comparison was made between figures on Form EC8A and the physical data on BVAS machine used for the election.
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