In the ongoing governorship election petition proceedings in Lafia, Nasarawa State, a witness for the All Progressives Congress (APC), Aliyu Bello, has asserted that votes were manipulated in several wards across the state to hinder the incumbent’s re-election during the March 18 poll.
During his cross-examination at the tribunal’s recent session, Bello contradicted the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) claim that the APC inflated figures to secure Governor Sule’s victory. Instead, Bello contended that the opposition party, PDP, was culpable of tampering with vote counts….CONTINUE READING
Bello pointed out that elections were nullified in Ashige electoral ward of Lafia local government area by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), leading to the issuance of Form EC40G to signify the cancellation.
Regarding allegations of vote reduction in Gayam, Chiroma in Lafia LGA, and Kanje Abuni and Azara in Awe LGA, Bello affirmed that the petitioner’s votes remained unchanged and were accurately recorded.
Additionally, Bello contested the validity of tables presented by the petitioners in their submissions. These tables, located on pages 49 to 51 of their petition, claimed that they were leading by 4130 votes. Bello, who also serves as the APC secretary in the state, argued that these tables contained discrepancies such as reductions in votes scored by the second respondent (APC) and erroneous additions to the petitioner’s vote counts.
Bello specifically cited examples, stating that APC’s votes in Kofar Alhaji Mukhtar were recorded as 65 when they should have been 160, and in Angwan Nupuwa Polling unit 006, the party received 184 votes rather than the accurate count of 200.
