Tribunal : Labour Party closes case against Gov Mbah, BVAS machines admitted as evidence

The Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate of Labour Party in the March 18 governorship election in Enugu state, Mr Chijioke Edeoga, on Sunday closed his case against the victory of Governor Peter Mbah at the election tribunal sitting in Enugu.

Edeoga closed his case after calling 30 witnesses and one witness subpoena from Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Mr Victor Okafor to prove their allegations.

The Governorship Election Petition Tribunal is hearing the petition filed by Mr Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party against the election of Peter Mbah of the PDP as the governor.

Edeoga is praying the tribunal to disqualify Mbah over an alleged NYSC certificate forgery and manipulation of election results.

When the matter came up for hearing, the INEC subpoena witness, Okafor told the Tribunal that his commission provided five Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machines that were provided in the subpoena list.

The LP counsel, Mr Eyitayo Fatogun (SAN) tendered the five BVAS machines to the Tribunal as the PDP counsel, Dr Onyechi Ikpeazu and Mbah’s counsel, Mr Alex Izinyon objected to the tendering of the machines.

The counsels said that their reasons would be made known during their final addresses.

The tribunal, however, admitted the BVAS machines as evidence.

During cross examination by Fatogun, the subpoena witness said that the information that were generated on the BVAS machines during the governorship election on March 18 were now contained in the BVAS report from the Headquarters in Abuja.

He said that he did not have the BVAS machines for Owo and Ugboka registration areas of Nkanu East Local Government Area, adding that the machines could only be identified by their codes.

According to him, the codes of the five BVAS machines brought include 14/08/06/003, 14/08/01/002, 14/08/06/005, 14/08/17/012, 14/08/01/003,

“All the machines contained the BVAS and accessories,” he said.

He said that he could not operate the BVAS machines beyond the information he earlier gave concerning them because they (machines) had not been used