Arise TV’s regular morning show on November 2, 2024 featured one Martins Obono, Executive Director Tap Initiative for Citizens Development. Obono claims to be one of the many civil society activists in Nigeria and indeed, there are a legion of them. We do know for a fact that dangerous and unscrupulous elements operate as spies and agents and in all manner of guises in the name of operatives of civil society organisations. In the extant case, Obono could barely conceal the fact that he was an agent of the Peoples Democratic Party, commissioned to discredit the results of the Edo State gubernatorial election held on September 21, 2024 as he went straight for the jugular of the Independent National Electoral Commission from the start.
By deliberate act of skullduggery, he referenced the results in the fake Peoples Democratic Party’s iREV portal as if it was truly INEC iREV.
A bit of balanced review of his claims portrayed INEC as dumb and obtuse. That is far from the truth! Martins Obono’s egregious claims cannot stand the heat of legal interrogation except to serve the purpose of unconscionably besmirching the image of INEC thereby keeping the forlorn hope of the vanquished falsely high.
While Obono was justifying his engagement by the PDP, the petition filed by the candidate of the PDP, Asue Ighodalo, before the State Election Tribunal contesting the outcome of the election clearly circumvented the dead end of making electoral malpractices and corrupt practices such as forgery of results being belaboured at Arise TV media trial as grounds for his petition. Rather, the two main grounds that will be hotly contested in the State Election Tribunal as filed by the PDP are:
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(1) Non-compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act.
(2) That the 2nd respondent (Governor-Elect) did not win with the majority of lawful votes cast at the election.
There is no deposition or documents supporting allegations of “forgery” before the Election Tribunal. In the petition, the PDP is building her case around allegations of over-voting, votes suppression, etc. The Arise TV histrionics is a superfluous and unwarranted media trial that might distract their focus on proving the allegations in their petition.
It is important to call on the general public to discountenance the wild claims by the PDP and her paid agents. Our party, the All Progressives Congress, repeatedly raised alarm before and after the election that PDP installed digital technology equipment including a fake iREV Center at location near the Government House to falsify the votes scored by the respective parties at the election.
Further post election investigation not only confirmed the APC’s alarm but phantom and fictitious figures emanating from their illegal IREV portal is in the public space. They lied that requisite INEC Electoral forms were not filled in 320 polling units across the states, when in fact these forms were actually filled and endorsed.
They lied about over voting in 58 polling units, this they did by mischievously adding “spoilt ballot papers” into their computation of valid votes cast for determining over voting. They did not plead the number of accredited voters as captured by the BVAS machine, they did not pleade the BVAS report on accreditation of voters, yet they imagine they can prove over voting.
Similarly, they repeated their crazy allegation of over voting and non-filing of the INEC Electoral forms in 75 polling units. They then prayed that APC’s valid votes in these polling units be cancelled on the basis of these false and speculative pleadings .
I have carefully studied the petition and the pleadings. The APC and the 2nd respondent will soon file their replies.Without a scintilla of doubt, the emptiness and frivolity of the petition will be exposed from day one. I believe strongly that it will be dismissed with substantial cost against the petitioners.
The APC teeming members and the public should be wary of the misleading information regularly churned out by the PDP and their agents. It will intensify in the course of the trial. The true status of the PDP petition and pleadings before the State Election Tribunal should give no one any cause for worry. In the light of its vacuousness and hollowness, it cannot stand the test of legal scrutiny and fireworks. The counsels are not magicians and it is not within their calling to conjure evidence to prove cases! When it is dismissed by the tribunal (as we hope and expect), we should expect that opposition rogue mainstream and online media outlets will go haywire scandalising and demonising the courts/ judiciary for dismissing the empty petition. It is in their character to be desperate, irresponsible and unpatriotic!
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