President Muhammadu Buhar’s kinsman, Salisu Yusuf Maijigiri, Kastina State Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)Chairman, Tuesday, told Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal, sitting in Abuja, that PDP won Kastina state during the February 23 elections.
In his evidence, the witness, who testified for Atiku Abubakar and the PDP, disputed the return of Buhari by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as winner of the presidential election.
Maijigiri told the tribunal that 1, 555, 633 votes credited to President Buhari was not the true reflection of what transpired on the election day, maintaining that the figure was just allocated to the winner.
He alleged that agents of PDP in the 34 local government areas of the state were chased away while INEC adhoc staff were substituted with untrained ones used to produce fake results in the state.
Maijigiri, who was among nine witnesses presented by PDP at yesterday’s proceeding, insisted that PDP won in Katsina State with 905,000 votes while APC came second with 872,000 votes from the result collated by his party.
Another witness Salisu Garba Funtua alleged over voting on the Election Day because card readers were abandoned.
He further claimed that election was cancelled in several palces due to the malfunction of the card reader.
Under cross examination by Olanipekun, the witness maintained that the election was not free or fair because of over voting and other malpractices.
Another witness, Abdulsalam Idris in his own testimony told the tribunal that Atiku and PDP never conceded defeat to Buhari and APC because the February 23 election cannot be called election in the full meaning of democracy.
Another witness, Aliu Umar Ustas, who was a local government collation officer for Atiku alleged that police connived with APC members to cheat the PDP.
Under cross examination by counsel to APC, Lateef Fagbemi SAN, the witness emphasised that his party collated detail results and that they are been kept with the party.
In his own evidence, Tanko Birchi, a lawyer and businessman admitted that he was not physically present in all polling units but received complains in writing and verbal on the irregularities that characterised the election and that the complains have been delivered to the party national secretariat.
Responding to a question from the APC lawyer, the witness said that he heard that President Buhari was a general in the Nigerian Army.
All the witnesses called by the petitioners prayed the tribunal to void the election of February 23 on the ground of non compliance with electoral laws, violence, thuggery, non accreditation of voters and non qualification of Buhari to contest the election.
They maintained in the three states of Katsina, Kebbi and Niger were they voted and monitored the election that the presidential poll was characterised by rigging, allocation of votes to parties, use of thuggery to cause mayhem, non accreditation of voters, over voting, cancellation and alteration of election results as well as the use of police to intimidate, harass and coarse to do the biddings of the APC.
The nine witnesses told the tribunal led by Justice Mohammed Garba that political thugs were used by the APC to chase away PDP agents thereby making some of the agents not to sign some result sheets.
Felix Omohomhion, Abuja
