Date Published: 09/30/11

Jonathan: INEC did not give votes to my Party

President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan on Thursday told the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal siting in Abuja that the Independent National Election Commission, INEC, did not allocate any arbitrary vote to his party, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP).

Speaking through one of the witnesses called by Jonathan, Mr. Nyeson Wike, who is the Minister of State for Education, the President vehemently denied the allegations raised by the Congress for Progressive Change in the course of presenting their case before the Tribunal.

Wike admitted that the result released by INEC was the authentic and the true picture of the votes cast by Nigerians during the Presidential polls.
He stated that he could speak with all authority on the Presidential election because he was part of the monitoring group that was following up the results as being released by INEC.

Another witness who testified in at today’s proceedings was the acting National Chairman of the PDP, Alhaji Kawu Baraje, who also stated on oath that Jonathan won the April election without any compromise by the electoral body.

He further stated that the postponement of the National Assembly election by a week was due to the late arrival of the electoral materials, adding that the postponement did not in any way affect the victory of PDP in the election.
The tribunal also struck out the application brought by the Congress for Progressive Change praying it to compel the appearance of the Chairman of Independent National Election Commission, (INEC), Prof. Attahiru Jega before it.
INEC had earlier applied to the tribunal to discharge a subsisting subpoena it issued against its chairman.
Counsel to INEC, Onyechi Ikpeazu, a senior advocate had told the court that the subpoena had been overtaken by events since the CPC which sought for and obtained the subpoena had closed its case indicating that it had no more need for the evidence of the witness.