From Godwin Tsa, Abuja

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Governorship in Kogi State, Senator Dino Melaye on Friday told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC), that the final result of the February 25 election declared by the Chairman of the Independent National Election Commission(INEC), Yakubu Mahmood was wrongly computed.

Dino who was the National Coalition Agent of the PDP for the election explained that he walked out of the National Coalition centre, Abuja in protest because of the fraudulent activities that were taking place there.

Testifying as the Petitioners Witness 27 (PW27), Dino who represented Kogi West at the Senate told the court that he knows the electoral procedure because he was one of the lawmakers who put together the Electoral Act at the National Assembly.

The star witness who swear on the Holy Bible maintained that the election that produced President Bola Tinubu and Kashim Shettima was riddled with irregularities.

He was lead in his evidence-in-chief by the lead counsel to the PDP and Atiku Abubakar, Chief Chris Uche SAN.

While describing himself as National Collation Agent for the party, businessman and politician, he adopted three sets of his written statements on oath in urging the court to use it as his evidence in the petition filed by PDP and Atiku.

He noted that the sequence of 2023 election involves sorting, collating and announcement of results after which it is uploaded to the INEC Results Viewing Portal, IREV, before the presiding officer can proceed to the Ward collation centre.

“You stormed out of the National Collation Centre Abuja before the end of the collation process,” Mahmoud asked him.

“In protest of the fraudulent activities at the National Collation Centre, I left,” Melaye responded.

Asked by counsel to Tinubu and Shettima, Akin Olujimi SAN, asked the senator if the failure to transmit results to IREV can change the results already recorded on Form EC8A, to which, he said, “It will not, in an ideal situation.”

Melaya admitted that he did not state what he found to be the actual scores of Atiku in his statement on oath, saying he briefed the party’s statisticians.

“Which law designates IREV as a collation centre?,” Olujimi asked him.

The senator replied saying IREV is not a collation centre but it is part of the process for the conduct of the 2023 election.

He was asked by the legal team of APC if he mentioned the areas in Kano, Borno and Lagos states where he claimed in his statement that there was alleged malpractice and violence.

The senator, however, said he did not mention the places categorically.

The senator was eventually discharged from the witness box by the five-man panel of the court led by Justice Haruna Tsammani.

After that, the PDP lawyer, Uche, disclosed that he received some electoral documents from the INEC Chairman following a subpoena against him.

Some of them were Form EC8As in respect of Nasarawa state(13 LGAs).