Jime vs Ortom: What Ortom’s witness said about card readers in 2019 elections

By Kula Tersoo

A witness in a suite challenging the election of Samuel Ortom of Benue state told the tribunal today that smart card reader was not mandatory for accreditation during the 2019 general elections.

Mr. Alex Adum who was in the witness box as RW1(star witness for Ortom) and led in evidence by S T Hon, counsel to the 2nd respondent had earlier told the court that votes can only be outrightly cancelled or reduced when it was discovered from the central processing unit of INEC that the votes returned were more than the total number of accredited voters in a particular area.

Emmanuel Jime and his party the All Progressives Congress (APC) had dragged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Samuel Ortom and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as 1st, 2nd and 3rd respondents respectively to challenge the declaration of Samuel Ortom as a valid winner of the 2019 gubernatorial polls.

Counsel to the petitioners, K K Eleja SAN during cross examination confronted the RW1 with exhibit P747, page 5, paragraphs 9 & 10 where it was clearly started that it was mandatory to use smart card reader for accreditation during the 2019 general elections.

Adum who read out the paragraphs before the court answered in affirmative when asked whether he was aware of the provisions.

Though the witness also agreed during cross examination that his PVC too was collected at the polling unit by INEC adhoc staff and inserted in the smart card reader, he still insisted that it was possible for a voter to vote without passing through the process of accreditation through the smart card reader.

The court was almost thrown into a rowdy session when Eleja confronted RW1 with 12 voters’ registers marked as Exhibits, P908, P790, P798, P908, P909, P912, P915, P921, P898, P906, P911, P913 selected across the eleven Local Government areas where the elections are being interrogated.

Eleja who insisted there was no accreditation of any kind in majority of the polling units insisted RW1 should go through the registers and tell the court whether there was any accreditation by way of ticking the relevant boxes as set out in the rules guiding the conduct of the 2019 general elections.

But counsels to 2nd, 3rd and later 1st respondents were intermittently raising objections to the time allotted to the counsel to the petitioners and also the questions concerning the voters’ register.

It took over 30 mins of injections during the time of the petitioners counsel cross examination of RW1.

Adum who finally answered that he can only speak for himself and the process he underwent before voting but declined to answer the general process of accreditation.

Chairman of the tribunal, Justice H A Olusiyi adjourned the case for Saturday, 17th August 2019 on the request of the 2nd respondent’s counsel who said he may be calling more witnesses on the adjourned date.