By Francis Ugwu
A witness of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ibrahim Hamza, told the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, on Monday that he signed the election results of Nasarawa State under duress.
The witness said this at the continuation of the hearing of a petition filed by Atiku Abubakar and his party, PDP.
They are challenging the Feb. 25 presidential election results, which brought President Bola Tinubu to power as a duly elected president.
Respondents in the petition marked CA/PEPC/05/2023 are Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), President Bola Tinubu, and All Progressives Congress (APC).
Hamza, who is the 10th witness called by the PDP, said he is a human resources consultant and represented PDP as Nasarawa collation officer.
During cross-examination by the counsel for INEC, Abubakar Mahmoud, the witness told the court that he signed the results under duress.
“I did not state this in my witness statement of oath because I knew a day like this would come.
The results were altered after I appended my name and signed.
“Due process was not followed. I had to sign to obtain a copy of the results because there was this intimidation that if I did not sign, I would not be given the result,” he said.
He said that he voted, but the results were not uploaded because the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) failed.
Similarly, Abiye Sekibo, the seventh witness (PW7) told the court during cross-examination by counsel for Tinubu, Akin Olujimi, that the results from polling units across the state were not captured on the BVAS.
Sekibo was PDP’s state collation officer for Rivers.
He said: “All the polling units I went to could not upload the results.”
He, however, admitted that his candidate did not poll up to 25% of votes in the Federal Capital Territory.
Abraham David testified as the ninth witness (PW9) and was the FCT collation officer. He also said his candidate did not win 25 per cent of the FCT votes.
Lastly, Mohammed Madaki, PDP chairman for FCT, testified as the eighth witness (PW8).
Meanwhile, the five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani adjourned further hearing of the petition until tomorrow.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reported that counsels for PDP told the panel during the pre-hearing session that they would call 100 witnesses to prove their petition
