By Pamela Eboh
The Anambra State Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Chief Ndubuisi Nwobu, aka, Obuka Awka has said that the Labour Party, LP, presidential candidate, Mr. Peter Obi rigged the February 25, presidential election in the state to win.
Nwobu stated this while standing as a PDP star witness at the ongoing election tribunal in Abuja, saying that there were community rigging in Anambra in the last election.
Nwobu is Atiku’s eleventh witness to testify before the five-member panel headed by Haruna Tsammani.
Obi had scored 584,621 votes, Atiku Abubakar, 9,036 votes while Bola Ahmed Tinubu polled 5,111 votes in Anambra State according to the resukt announced by tge Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Nwobu who is also the owner of Geogold hotel in Awka and the state collation agent of the party, during proceedings told the court that after the counting of votes, presiding officers refused to upload the results.
According to him, he visited about 30 polling units out of the 4,720 polling units in the state on election day.
He said he was forced to sign the result sheet of the election at the state collation centre because he wouldn’t have been given a copy if he didn’t.
His words, “I signed the result sheet when it was obvious that without signing, a copy would not be made available to me.
“Results were entered at polling units. But, every effort made to get the presiding officer to upload it on IREV proved abortive.”
When asked if result sheets were signed by agents of the PDP at polling units before there were taken to the collation centre, Nwobu said “yes”.
“They were taken to the collation centre at the ward level. That is where magic started happening.
“Even in certain instances, I had to intervene to ensure that some of the polling officers were not attacked by voters and other political party agents.
“There were problems at the polling units with presiding officers.”
He said in some instances, he had to intervene to prevent voters and other party agents from attacking INEC officials.