Akwa Ibom Guber Tribunal: DPO, Two Other Nsima Ekere’s witnesses give conflicting evidences

A Superintendent of Police, Samuel Isiek and two other witnesses, Clement Ikpatt and Bishop Samuel Akpan, today, presented conflicting evidences at the Governorship Elections Petitions Tribunal.

The three witnesses were called by the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Nsima Ekere, who is challenging the election of Governor Udom Emmanuel of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP).

Isiek, who is the Divisional Police Officer (DPO) for Essien Udim Local Government Areas of the State said the election was free and fair in the local council areas and tendered a result to show the victory of APC in the area, maintaining that he monitored the election and supervised the collation of the local government results in a hitch-free process before escorting the result to the INEC headquarters in Uyo.

Clement Ikpatt, a former police officer who claimed to be an ICT expert said he monitored via satellite and received reports of widespread violence by PDP agents aided by security officers.

On his part Bishop Samuel Akpan, the State Collation Agent of APC said he wanted the entire elections in the state to be cancelled, including Essien Udim and Etim Ekpo results, which his party claimed to have won, saying the entire process was faulty.

In his petition before the tribunal, Nsima Ekere of the APC claimed that his party won in the two local government areas of Etim Ekpo and Essien Udim while praying the tribunal to nullify the other 29 local government results declared by INEC in favour of PDP.

The Essien Udim DPO, who claimed he watched the entire collation process and monitored the figures entered during collation in a peaceful atmosphere, before being given a certified true copy of the result sheet, claimed there was no cancelation of any result in the local government area during the governorship election.

“My lord, there was no cancelation in Essien Udim because we provided adequate security in the area and the figure I see here is different from the result I saw during collation in Essien Udim”, the DPO stated, even as the Counsel to the 1st respondent Onyechi Ikpeazu SAN asked if he was a police agent during the election to be actively involved during collation.

He was however unable to explain why the result sheet he tendered as exhibit in the court carried the results of eight out of the 11 Wards in the area.

“My lord, I could not lay hands on those three wards result immediately,” he muttered after a long pause.

He was also unable to explain why no agent of other political parties, other than APC, appended their signatures to the result, which in his claims, was obtained in a peaceful environment.

The DPO who admitted that he spend some money to get his report on the exercise to the tribunal, was dazed when on cross examination he was asked if his interest in the case was pecuniary, to which he responded that he would request for the refund of the money he had spent and he had no biased interest in the matter.

The Police officer also denied another earlier conflicting police report, which Counsel to the 2nd Respondent, Sylva Oguwemoh (SAN) confronted him with, even when his signature, name and Police acknowledgements adorned the document.

“My lord, I don’t know anything about this document,” he said, compelling the INEC Counsel to conclude that he only came to the tribunal to deceive and cause confusion.

But Clement Ikpatt, who said the situation reports he received were very credible, countered the Police report by saying that there was no part of the state that was devoid of violence and election fraud.

Akpan confirmed voting in his polling unit at Ikot Akpan Ishiet in Onna local government, but said he regarded his vote as ‘illegitimate’.

Similarly, Bishop Akpan who was cross examined by the respondents as a star witness, admitted that as state collation agent, he only relied on phone calls and reports from his agents in their respective wards, to conclude that election was not credible in all parts of Akwa Ibom State.

Akpan also admitted that he was not present when his party local government agents received the results he tendered as exhibits, from their respective local government areas’ returning officers of INEC.

However a dramatic twist came up when the witness, Sam Akpan could not attest before the tribunal how as an agent of one party, he was in custody of two sets of results sheets of two different polling units in Ibesikpo Asutan local
government area Unit 001 Ward 6 and Unit 006 Ward 2, a situation which warranted Tayo Oyetibo SAN, Counsel to PDP to put it to him that the results were just manufactured arbitrarily and brought before the tribunal.