EXTRA: Magic happened to PDP’s votes at Anambra collation centre, Atiku’s witness tells court

Ndubuisi Nwobu, a witness of Atiku Abubakar, has told the presidential election tribunal that “magic happened to the votes of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) at the collation centre in Anambra state”.

Nwobu was the state collation agent of the PDP in the February 25 presidential election in Anambra state.

He is also the chairman of the PDP in Anambra.

During proceedings on Wednesday, Nwobu told the court that after the counting of votes, presiding officers refused to upload the results.

He also said he visited about 30 polling units out of the 4,720 polling units in the state on election day.

He said he was forced to sign the result sheet of the election at the state collation centre, because he wouldn’t have been given a copy if he didn’t.

“I signed the result sheet when it was obvious that without signing, a copy would not be made available to me,” Nwobu said.

“Results were entered at polling units. But, every effort made to get the presiding officer to upload it on IREV proved abortive.”

When asked if result sheets were signed by agents of the PDP at polling units before there were taken to the collation centre, Nwobu said “yes”.

“There were taken to the collation centre at the ward level. That is where magic started happening,” he said.

“There were problems at the polling units with presiding officers.”

He said in some instances, he had to intervene to prevent voters and other party agents from attacking INEC officials.

“Even at certain instances, I had to intervene to ensure that some of the polling officers were not attacked by voters and other political party agents,” Nwobu said.

Nwobu is Atiku’s eleventh witness to testify before the five-member panel headed by Haruna Tsammani.

Subsequently, the petitioners sought to present three subpoena witnesses before the court.

The respondents, however, asked the court for time to go through the statements submitted by the witnesses.

Abubakar Mahmoud, counsel to INEC, told the court they will need to verify the identities of the witnesses and whether they truly participated in the election.

The panel granted the request of the respondents and adjourned the case to June 8.

Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP) in the 2023 presidential election, scored 584, 621 votes in Anambra; while Abubakar of the PDP polled 9,036 votes in the state.

Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 5, 111 votes in Anambra.