Governor of Bayelsa State, Douye Diri, has said the state’s governorship election petition tribunal, which sat in Abuja, exposed the electoral fraud perpetrated by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 11, 2023 poll in the state, Chief Timipre Sylva, the party’s chairman and a serving Commissioner of Police.

Recall that the tribunal had on Monday dismissed the APC and Sylva’s petition challenging the declaration of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as winner of the election for lacking in merit The Bayelsa governor spoke on Tuesday night at the King of Glory Chapel in Government House, Yenagoa, where he stopped for thanksgiving upon his arrival from Abuja.

A crowd of jubilant party members and supporters thronged the state airport and the Government House to welcome the governor. A statement by his Chief Press Secretary, Mr. Daniel Alabrah, quoted the governor as saying that during cross-examination at the tribunal, the APC witnesses shot themselves in the foot with frivolous claims and inconsistent exhibits.

The governor narrated how a former Commissioner of Police in the state, Mr. Tolani Alausa, who was procured as a star witness in the case, tainted his image by tendering false evidence before the court and was humiliated for parading fake INEC documents.

He noted that although Mr Alausa was no longer the CP in the state, the senior police officer presented himself at the tribunal to defend the fraud perpetrated by the APC candidate. Diri also said the tribunal equally excoriated the party’s chairman in the state, Chief Dennis Otiotio, for his “unprofessional conduct” being a legal practitioner. He said: “During one of the sittings, I physically went to the tribunal and I saw what transpired.

“Our party’s secretary, in the witness box, stated that most of the election materials the APC presented as INEC’s documents before the court were manufactured by the APC state chairman, Dennis Otiotio.”