Akpabio Vs Ekpenyong: ‘Born-Again’ Election Official In Dock Messes Up INEC, Igini

By UbongAbasi Ise

Amidst controversies surrounding the use of smart card readers for the accreditation of voters in the senatorial election held on February 23 in Akwa Ibom Northwest (Ikot Ekpene) district, a staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has revealed how possible it could be to generate and manipulate the number of accredited voters in the smart card reader to suit the wish of any user, a revelation that cast aspersion on the authenticity of the information generated by the machine for elections.

This disclosure was made yesterday by Ms Elizabeth Usen, an election official who supervised presidential and national assembly elections in Afaha Ward in Essien Udim local government area, who also appeared as a subpoenaed witness before the national assembly election tribunal sitting in Uyo at the instance of Senator Chris Ekpenyong, 1st Respondent in a case in which Senator Godswill Akpabio is challenging the outcome of February 23 Ikot Ekpene senatorial election.

Ms Usen said INEC cancelled election results of polling units 11 and 13 in Afaha Ward because armed thugs suspected to be hired by the All Progressives Congress, APC, invaded those polling units, carted away smart card readers and other election materials and manipulated the results in favour of APC.

The witness claimed to have observed how extra permanent voter cards, PVC, were swiped through smart card readers to generate 316 as a number of accredited voters for polling unit 11, and 239 for polling unit 13.

After claiming that she was familiar with the accreditation processes, the petitioner’s counsel, S.I.Ameh, SAN, put it to her that a smart card reader has to read the information on the PVC and authenticate them with the thumbprint of the card’s owner, the witness suddenly made a U-turn, claiming she lacked idea about card reader usage because she is not in the ICT unit of the commission.

Contrary to the INEC’s staff insistence that election results from polling units 11 and 13 in Afaha Ward were cancelled by the commission because of irregularities, the witness was apparently surprised when Ameh showed her a documented reply filed by INEC before the tribunal, which in its paragraph 63, stated that the commission received all the 14 polling unit results of Afaha ward, and none of the polling units of the ward was listed under paragraph 64 that contains names of areas in which elections were cancelled as a result of  abduction of INEC officials as well as hijacking of election materials.

As it would be recalled however, accredited voters that were not captured by smart card reader in Essien Udim local government area were reportedly excluded in the imputation of results at INEC headquarters in Uyo by Mr. Mike Igini, the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Akwa Ibom State.

Ms Elizabeth Usen further claimed in her testimony that there was no presence of policemen and other security operatives at the registered area centre, RAC, and in all the polling units she supervised in Afaha Ward on the election day.

She maintained that no security operative had accompanied the election officials during the distribution of materials in the whole of Afaha Ward, an allegation that shook the courtroom.

Meanwhile, unconfirmed report has it that Ms Elizabeth Usen is a member of Deeper Life Bible Church who resides at Aba Road in Ikot Ekpene contrary to Plot 4/5 Udo Udoma Avenue residence she told the tribunal.

It was earlier reported in The Sensor that Mr. Ndifreke Idung, an indigene of Afaha Ikot Ebak community in Essien Udim, who was serving as the Ward collation agent for theAPC at Afaha Ward during February 23 senatorial election, said no result of any polling unit in his ward was nullified.

He said all the results that came to ward collation centre were duly signed by the party polling unit agents.

According to Idung, he signed the ward result in which the PDP polled the total votes of 2,339, while the APC scored the total of 4,645 votes.

©The Sensor Newspaper

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