Abia guber: Statistician testifies in court, counters INEC result

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Abia State has closed its case in the petition challenging the declaration of Mr Alex Otti as winner of the March 18, 2023, governorship election in the State.

At the continued hearing on Friday, August 18, 2023, Mr Samuel Oduntan, who identified himself as a statistician and digital examiner, appeared as a subpoenaed witness for the PDP.

He adopted the written report of his analysis as evidence in court.

Oduntan observed that although INEC allegedly 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 the Labour Party.

Under cross examination, he told the court that Abia State has a total number of 4,062 polling units and 184 Registration Areas (Wards) in the 17 LGAs.

According to him, after considering and recalculating the valid votes cast in Obingwa LGA, PDP allegedly scored 169,707, while the Labour Party scored 169,519.

His claim was against the earlier results announced by INEC which put PDP’s score for the election at 88,529 and that of Labour Party at 175,467.

But the Lead Counsel to Governor Alex Otti, A.J. Owonikoko described the PDP witness as a stranger brought by the PDP.

Also, the Lead Counsel to Labour Party, Umeh Kalu, SAN, cross-examined the PDP witness, Oduntan.

Under cross examination, Oduntan told the Tribunal that there was an order for him to be allowed to inspect BVAS machines and Voter’s Cards used for the elections but was allegedly denied access.

The matter was adjourned to August 23, 24 and 25 for the respondents to open their defence.

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