Magic happened at Anambra collation centre, Atiku's witness tells court

Ndubuisi Nwobu, a witness presented by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s presidential candidate in the February 25 presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, has detailed how his candidate was rigged out in Anambra state.

Nwobu, who mounted the witness box at the resumption of proceedings at the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) on Wednesday, June 7, 2023, alleged that “magic happened to the votes of the PDP candidate at different collation centres in Anambra."

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced that the President-elect and All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the exercise, Bola Tinubu, scored 5, 111 votes in Anambra State, Atiku polled 9,036 votes. At the same time, Labour Party's Peter Obi won the state with a landslide margin having scored a total of 584, 621 votes.

Abracadabra at Anambra collation centre

However, Nwobu, who is Anambra PDP Chairman and the state collation agent of the party, told the court that presiding officers refused to upload polling units results after counting of votes.

The witness 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 otherwise he wouldn't have been given a copy.

“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.”

Election petitions tribunal. [Pulse] Pulse Nigeria

When asked if PDP agents signed results sheets at the polling units before they were taken to the collation centre, Nwobu answered in the affirmative.

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

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

Speaking further, the witness said his intervention also prevented voters and other party agents from attacking INEC officials in some instances.

“Even in 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.