Osun Gov Tribunal: Oyetola’s case crashing, suffers set back from beginning

The petition of Governor Gboyega Oyetola of Osun State at the Governorship Tribunal sitting in Osogbo, is beginning to crash as his star witness, Isiaka Olanrewaju, destroyed the arguments of over-voting even as his counsel hurriedly withdrawn other two witnesses after inconsistencies of the witness from Ila Orangun.

After the incoherent confessions of the star witness, Akin Olujinmi (SAN), the lead counsel for Oyetola made the application to withdraw other witnesses earlier scheduled for today shortly after the panel reconvened from a short break.

Making an oral application, Olujinmi said the petitioner will no longer call the two witnesses in support of its petition and seek the leave of the court to have them withdrawn.

“My Lords, we want to drop the two witnesses we had lined up for appearance,” Olujinmi applied to the panel.

Paul Aganaba (SAN) noted that  Olujinmi had seen the futility of pouring water into a basket, hence, the withdrawal of the other listed witnesses.

Oyetola suffered setback from star witness at Tribunal as actual hearing of the governorship tribunal commenced on Tuesday with the star witness for the petitioner, Isiaka Olanrewaju, openly, disowned many of his own deposition, thus, subverting the substance of the suit challenging the victory of Senator Ademola Adeleke in the Osun State on July 16th governorship election.

The witness, Isiaka Olanrewaju, demonstrated that Oyetola’s case is not only weak but unfounded

The witness, cross-examined by Paul Ananaba SAN, Alex Iziyon, SAN and Onyechi Ikpeazu SAN spoke against many aspects of his own deposition and accepted that BVAS machines as primary source, are superior to BVAS report which are secondary source.

The witness in his several admissions, frustrated many APC supporters, who began to leave the court room, including  a leading counsel for Governor Gboyega Oyetola , Saka Layonu (SAN) who also left the court room probably because of the embarrassing testimonies of the star witness.

The star witness made the first misstep in telling the court that he worked for Senator Adeleke in deposition.  The witness stated that his deposition was “an error, not a mistake”

The witness, who claimed to be a retired civil servant, was found to be a serving aide to Governor Oyetola undermining his claim to being an expert in electoral matters. He is a paid employee of the governor which disputed his claim to be an expert.

The witness admitted that the server can only get a data transmitted to it and that this is not possible unless there is network. A result, what is not transmitted can, therefore, not be on the server. He noted that network issue can delay transmission of results, thus, a server cannot be superior to the machine which transmitted report to it.

The witness also said that he did not Compare Form EC8 with Ticking of Voters’ Register.

He admitted that his report did not include comparing of actual voters register to Form EC8A, meaning that his report lacked a basis for ascertaining actual voters on the day of election and therefore, not competent to determine question of over-voting.

He admitted that he Secured BVAS report on July 17.

He contradicted the time he secured the BVAS report. While his deposition said July 17, he mentioned July 27th. His inconsistency angered the judges.

The witness also admitted that he did not cross check the BVAS Machines before presenting his report.  He maintained that  he did not compare all the documents he had with the primary source of election data which are the BVAS machines. The BVAS report was then based on generated data from a server that does not contain all information on the election outcome.

Other inconsistent statements of the star witness include:

• Admits that BVAS are the primary Source of Data, while BVAS report is secondary.

He proceeded to admit that BVAS machines are the primary source of data for the election. The machines and their contents are superior to the BVAS report generated from the server.

• Admits he did not use form ECG40(1,3), EG40B,

Worst still was the witness’ admission that he did not defer to EG 40 series in his analysis of the results. That gap created big hole in the report of the witness as the ECG form series contain vital final phase data on an election.

• Disown Table of Report by Claiming it is 749, not 762 polling units even after table count

On table of election result computed to show over-voting, the witness was at a loss when he was told that the table he submitted contains 762 units rather than 749 reported by the witness. This generated heated debates among counsel, putting the witness on the spot for more than 10 minutes.

By the time the star witness concluded, he had practically disowned form EC8 series on which the over-voting claim was based as he admitted he is not sure whether the forms are genuine or not.

He also discredited large parts of his own report sworn to under oath.

The Tribunal adjourned hearing to tomorrow.