BY YUSUF MOHAMMED IRIAEVHO
Right from the Campaigns for the Edo September 2024 Governorship Elections, it had been clear that lacking any understanding of the needs and mindset of Edolites, urged on by his puppeteer Ex Governor Obaseki, Asue Ighodalo had regaled Edolites and the world to a series of theatrical performance.
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Being an out an out Lagos boy without touch with Edo and her people, his first performance was his comic interpretation interpretation of our to look like a typical Edo Boy. The boardroom guru and financial shark dumped his suites for jeans T shirts, cowboy boots and funny looking eye shades that made him look like a bad immigration of a garage boy or gang leader made good.
All through the Campaigns, this man who needed interpreters to talk to his elders and people of his village entertained us with one self induced metamorphosis to another. Too bad, his ideal of using sensationalism to beguile the people of Edo State failed woefully: Edo State Governance is not an Ojo Oladipo Theatre Show our people told him clearly with their votes. They rejected him and voted for the man they know and trust Senator Monday Okpebholo.
Now Haven failed at the polls it appears Ighodalo is set to give us more of his adeptness in staging classical drama: this time on the hallowed floor of the Election Petition Tribunal. Since the commencement of the Tribunal proceedings, Asue Ighodalo and his legal team has not failed to entertain us with one comic drama or the other.
First, Ighodalo and his legal team came and dump a garbage truck full load of unverified documentary evedence on the Tribunal with the obvious and comic believe that the volume of documents will intimidate their opponents and overwhelm the learned members of the Tribunal. This failed woefully.
Second day, Ighodalo and his team came with a list of secrete witnesses. Again the tribunal said fafa, foul. But today’s proceedings did not only reveal that Ighodalo is not just clear on the emptiness of his claims but is staging a show to wast the tribunals time and tax payers money peharps to satisfy his craving for showmanship. Ighodalo presented witnesses whom one observer refered to as ominiprence witness due to the claims of the witnesses to know and duly testified to events and incidence in places and locations they were not physically present nor had any standing to be.
The first petitioner’s witness (PW1), from Ikpoba okha local government area, had stunned the court when he testified that he was neither an agent at any of the polling units or wards nor directly involved in the election process.
Instead, he revealed that his role was limited to merely observing and personally examining the results in a “situation room”, raising serious questions about the accuracy and credibility of the evidence he presented.
The situation grew more dramatic with the testimony of the second petitioner’s witness (PW2) from Akoko-Edo local government area. PW2 claimed he was not a polling unit or ward agent but managed to coordinate all the results from 241 polling units and 10 wards in a single day.
His admission that he was not involved in the actual collation but only supervised and compiled reports from agents left many in the courtroom bewildered, raising doubts about the veracity of the evidence on which the petitioners were relying.
In a session led by the petitioners’ legal team, PW1 confirmed signing two statements on oath, dated October 11, 2024, and November 16, 2024, respectively. The witness further clarified that his involvement was limited to overseeing results at the situation room, which was not located at the collation center.
Under cross-examination, PW1 admitted that the sensitive BIVAS materials were not available for inspection in the situation room, casting further doubt on the integrity of the process he observed.
The drama continued as the respondents’ legal team vigorously cross-examined both witnesses, challenging the credibility of their testimonies and questioning the methods used to compile the election results.
In particular, PW1’s knowledge of the voter accreditation process was found to be lacking, and his failure to mention key documents like the IREV (Independent Results Viewing Portal) raised serious concerns.
Meanwhile, PW2’s testimony added to the uncertainty, as he revealed that although he coordinated results from all polling units and wards in his local government, he did not directly oversee the creation of the forms nor receive reports from agents.
His inability to distinguish between his own observations and those of the agents created doubts about the reliability of the evidence.
When will Ighodalo realise his sweet cookies of drama have crumbled and stop this theatre of the absurd by accepting the reality of his rejection by Edo voters and not try to change this through the backdoor?
Yusuf Mohammed Iriaevho is the Publisher Tuetalknaija Online News