A staff of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Ikpong Inyang has told the governorship election petition tribunal sitting in Uyo that Mr. William Ndarake, PW44 to the All Progressives Congress (APC) is an impostor.
He told the tribunal that Ndarake was not the assistant Presiding Officer 2 of the commission in Abiakpo, Ntoedino, Ward 4, Unit 5, Obot Akara local government area of the state as he had claimed.
The INEC officer also said he had a list of ad-hoc staff of Ward 4, polling unit booklet and the list of supervising officers in the area.
Inyang, who was the supervising officer for Ward 4, Obot Akara local government area, presented the list of presiding officers, supervisory presiding and polling unit booklet while testifying as a subpoenaed witness for the first respondent and governor of the state, Mr. Udom Emmanuel.
He said the witness, who claimed to be an INEC ad hoc staff member and presented video evidence of massive fingerprinting for the PDP, was not on the list of ad hoc staff in the election.
Ndarake had alleged that as an assistant presiding officer in Ward 4, Unit 005 in the Obot Akara, he was abducted to the house of Senator Chris Ekpenyong and threatened at gunpoint to manipulate election results in support of the PDP.
He further alleged that he recorded the video of the abduction with his phone while the gunmen were still threatening to kill him if he failed to cooperate.
But Inyang, under cross-examination counsel for the PDP, Mr. Uko Udom said another man in the video, whom Ndarake had claimed was the Presiding Officer for Unit 004, Ward 4 in Obot Akara, was also an imposter.
According to Inyang, the Presiding Officer for that unit was a woman, Ms. Priscilla Ifeanyinwa.
He also identified Exhibit RSA564 as the result for Unit 004, which Ifeanyinwa signed as presiding officer.
The witness added that he was given the list of all the officials for Obot Akara and took attendance as the Supervisory Presiding Officer in Ward 4.
His testimony brought to an end the defence by the first respondent in the petition.
Earlier, a digital forensic expert, Mr. Edidiong Udoh, had described the video evidence earlier tendered Ndarake as a scam stage-managed to mislead the tribunal.
Udoh noted that the video was deliberately orchestrated where the GPS was switched off by the witness, to prevent analysts from tracing the location of the event in the video.
He said contrary to Ndarake’s evidence that the video was recorded under duress with the phone placed on the ground, the video showed scenes recorded by more than one person with the participants fully showing indications of being part of the plot.
“If the phone was placed on the floor, the only angle it would have captured would have been only one point of the roof of the building or one direction of the room, but the video shows activities of what happened even on top of the table and all angles of the room, meaning the device was in motion from the beginning to the end,” he said.
Under cross examination by counsel to INEC, Mr. Sylva Ogwemoh, the forensic expert further said: “From my observation, over three persons were involved in the making of this video apart from PW44.
“PW44 also misled the tribunal by saying he later picked up the phone to continue the recording. All through the video, he was seen seated with legs stretched out and his hands on his thighs. This means the video was done by someone else.
“The person in front of the green table and the person who begged that his face should not be recorded were in the know of the video recording. There was someone who was doing the thumb printing. It was stage managed and not done under tension or anxiety like PW44 claimed,” he added.
