The Peoples Democratic Party in Abia State has closed its case challenging the declaration of Alex Otti as winner of the March 18 2023 governorship election in the state.
The Eagle Online recalls the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Otti of the Labour Party winner of the poll.
However, at the continued hearing of the PDP challenge of the declaration on Friday, a statistician and digital forensic examiner, Samuel Oduntan, who appeared as a subpoenaed witness for the PDP, adopted the written report of his analysis as evidence in court.
Oduntan, who testified under oath, informed the court that neither he nor any member of his team was a card carrying member of any political party.
In his report, he observed that although INEC refused to give him access to the relevant BVAS data used during the election, he relied on forms EC8E and EC8A to analyse the votes cast for both the PDP and Labour Party.
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He further informed the court under cross-examination that Abia State has a total number of 4,062 polling units and 184 Registration Areas (Wards) in the 17 LGAs and after considering and recalculating the valid votes cast in Obingwa LGA, PDP scored 169,707 votes, while the Labour Party scored 169,519 votes.
This was against the earlier results announced by INEC, which put the PDP’s score for the election at 88,529 and that of Labour Party at 175,467.
The report was admitted in evidence by the Tribunal as PDP closed its case though it has a pending application for the court to order INEC to allow for the inspection of the BVAS data used for the election.
The matter was adjourned to August 23, 24 and 25 for the Respondents to open their defence.
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