Another Oyinlola’s Expert Admits Errors In His Report

Mar 20th, 2010 | By Bankole Alao David | Category: From The Courts

Lateef B. Adeleke (Prof.) Statistical Witness For OyinlolaIt was a drama of absurd before the Justice Ali Garba-led Election Petition Retrial Tribunal on Thursday, as a Professor of Statistics from the University of Ilorin, Kwara State, Professor Lateef Babatunde Adeleke, who gave evidence for Governor Olagunsoye Oyinlola and his party, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) admitted that there were errors in the report of the statistical analysis which he carried out.

The drama ensued, as the expert who had demonstrated in his report that a particular serial number of ballot paper appeared on two or more ballot papers for another unit quickly made a u-turn and claimed that the repetition of the serial numbers of ballot papers, which he had committed in his report was an inadvertent error on his part.

Action Congress (AC) governorship candidate in the state, Engineer Rauf Aregbesola is challenging the election of Oyinlola, following the verdict of the Court of Appeal that sat in Ibadan, Oyo State, ordering the retrial of the petition that had earlier been heard by the discredited Justice Thomas Naron-led tribunal.

It would be recalled that the professor expert was called into the witness box on Wednesday and was led by Oyinlola’s counsel to adopt his deposition, but the cross-examination of the witness could not continue due to the application for an adjournment sought by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) counsel, Mr Dayo Famakin-Johnson.

Under cross-examination by INEC counsel on Thursday, the don, contrary to the claims in his witness statement on oath that he visited INEC office several times, said that he only visited the INEC office once, stating that his visit to the INEC office was to familiarize himself with relevant electoral forms, which he used in arriving at his statistical analysis report to counter the analysis carried out by one of Aregbesola’s experts, Mr Tunde Yadeka.

He claimed that when he visited the INEC office, he was shown forms EC8A, EC8B, EC8C, EC8D, EC8E, EC25A and other relevant electoral forms, adding that the conclusion of Yadeka that ballot papers were distributed by INEC on polling unit by polling unit was based on erroneous assumption and that rather, the INEC distributed the ballot papers on ward by ward and local government by local government basis.

Questioned further, the professor made a u-turn and told the tribunal that the ballot papers were distributed on polling unit by polling unit basis in Atakunmosa-West and Boluwaduro local governments, while it was done on ward by ward basis in Ife-Central local government council area.

The INEC counsel tendered the CTC of form EC25A and it was admitted by the tribunal as exhibit R28 (1-17).

Under cross-examination by Aregbesola’s counsel, Mr Deji Sasegbon (SAN), the professor told the tribunal that he was not a fingerprint expert and that he did not witness the election in the state, saying that he only worked on the serial numbers of ballot papers and that he used form EC25A, which had been admitted as exhibit 186 by the tribunal to gather data and arrive at his conclusion scientifically.

In the course of cross-examination of the professor, tension rose, as Oyinlola’s counsel, Mr Kemi Pinheiro (SAN) interjected the exercise on several occasions, a situation that infuriated Aregbesola’s counsel, who appealed to the tribunal to warn Oyinlola’s counsel to stop interjecting his cross-examination by raising unnecessary objections to the questions asked.

Professor Adeleke was cross-examined by Aregbesola’s counsel thus:

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Professor, you also claimed that you examined form EC8A?

Professor Adeleke: No, that was not what I said. I said, for Boluwaduro and Atakumosa-West, we were given exhibit 186 and 138 to cross-check the serial numbers of ballot papers.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Are you saying that you did not examine form EC8A?

Professor Adeleke: As I indicated, I was given some electoral forms, among which is form EC8A.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Did you cross-check all the data on the relevant documents supply to you by INEC?

Professor Adeleke: I cross-checked them in conjunction with Tunde Yadeka’s report.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: In your report, please read ‘item 2’, table 2A?

Professor Adeleke: (He reads) Serial number ‘2’ is Isale-Obanla polling unit; register voters is 361.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Please, look at exhibit 182, form EC8A for Isale-Obanla polling unit and read out the number of registered voters for the unit?
Professor Adeleke: Number of voters here is 360.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Let me take you back to your report and you must answer the question. Will you be surprised that what is in the exhibit 186 if different from what is in the exhibit 175(2) which is form EC8A for that particular polling unit?

Professor Adeleke: I am surprised. I believe it was due to human error.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Thank you. Look at page 7 of your report again and read item 3?

Professor Adeleke: (He reads) Ward 01, Legiri polling unit; registered voters is 241.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Take a look at exhibit 175(4), form EC8A and read out the number of registered voters for that unit?

Professor Adeleke: The registered voters here is 244.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Professor, thank you very much. Please, take a look at your report again, which is exhibit R27 and read out item 5?

Professor Adeleke: Ward 1, St Nicholas Primary School; registered voters, 248.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Now, read out form EC8A for that polling unit, the number of registered voters.

Professor Adeleke: The registered voters here are 381. I have said that what I worked on was extracted from exhibit 186, which are the serial numbers of ballot papers.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: The basis upon which you draw your table 1 on Exhibit R27 is that it is not possible to have the same serial number on two or more ballot papers in two or more units. Is that correct?

Professor Adeleke: Yes.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: If it is shown to you that on INEC form and your table 1, the same serial number appears on one or more ballot papers in more than one unit, will you agree that your conclusion is baseless?

Professor Adeleke: There were ballot papers appearing in more than one units in the report of Tunde Yadeka. Table 1, therefore, contradicts Yadeka’s report because some certain number of ballot papers were deliberately replicated in order to give the impression that more than expected ballot papers were used.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: If it is also shown to you that in table 2A of your report, a serial number of ballot paper appeared on more than one ballot paper in more than one unit, will you agree that your report is faulty?

Professor Adeleke: No, because the materials used in tables 1 and 2A are independent. Table 1 was developed from Tunde Yadeka’s listing of serial numbers of ballot papers whereas table 2A was developed using exhibit 186 recorded on INEC form EC25A. So, there cannot be any basis to say that table 1 was wrong, because of what you observed on Table 2A.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Now, look at table 2A. Start from serial number ‘4’ of your report, exhibit R27 (17) and read out that ballot code column?

Professor Adeleke: 51,560,301

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Look at serial number 8 from that exhibit R27(17). Read out ballot code column again?

Professor Adeleke: 51,560,301

Aregbesola’s Counsel: You will agree with me that the serial number you have read is the same with the one read on serial number 4?

Professor Adelek: I am accepting responsibility for the typographical error. It is impossible to have a serial number repeated on more than one ballot papers and more than one unit. A serial number is a unique identification for number for a given ballot paper. Hence, the repetition observed in column 5, row 4 and column 5 row 8, is as a result of typographical error. In reality, it is not possible to have a serial number on more than one ballot papers in more than one unit.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Which one of them is typographical error?

Professor Adeleke: I can only answer that question when I have documents from which I extracted the data.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Even, in your own extraction, you didn’t notice that you put the same serial number in your table 2A despite the fact that you are an expert and a statistician?

Professor Adeleke: I am insisting that it is a human error which was inadvertently committed. What 2A is all about is that distribution of ballot papers to polling units is not done sequentially by INEC.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: You made extraction for only 11 units which is on table 2A of exhibit R27 (17) and it was full of errors. How can you now convince the tribunal that your report is not in doubt?

Professor Adeleke: My report is never in doubt, but the issue at stake there is that we extracted serial numbers of ballot papers from exhibit 186. That was made available to me in photocopy type. We therefore extracted the serial number of ballot papers from form EC25A.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Look at Exhibit R27 again , table 2A, ballot code column. I will be correct to say that this is the range of ballot papers given to the unit?

Professor Adeleke: Yes.
Aregbesola’s Counsel: First and foremost, if you go to exhibit R27(18), table 2B, the number of allocated ballot papers is 7,500 for Ilare ward 1, is that correct?
Professor Adeleke: No, because the range mentioned by you is the global range I earlier mentioned or stated. By mere subtraction of the smaller from the higher serial numbers was the computation done in error by Yadeka. The correct subtraction was to be done by using sub-ranges of numbers so as to arrive at reasonable number of ballot papers distributed to Saint Nicholas Primary School.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: If you go down to item 16, there are two sets of numbers there. How did you come about the allocated ballot papers you subtracted the range from, which gave you 2,800?

Professor Adeleke: The difference there is supposed to be 2,800, but what we are trying to do is using global range.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: So, you agree with me that you have made errors?

Professor Adeleke: I am saying we have a single range in error because in serial number one to 18, we can see we have two or more ranges.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Now, let me show you exhibit R28, EC25A where you extracted that information from. Read out the serial number loud, clear slowly and deliberately?

Professor Adeleke: G 51147102.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: Read your own report exhibit R27 (18), item 16?

Professor Adeleke: G51141102. After 4, it is supposed to be 7, so there is error there?
Aregbesola’s Counsel: What you have in your table 2B is G51141102?

Professor Adeleke: That was what I extracted. The only difference is that I wrote 1 instead of 7. It was an error. Hence, if the error of 1 for 7 is corrected, the result still remains 2,800.

Aregbesola’s Counsel: What is in your report, Exhibit R27 (17) and exhibit R28 is 6,000?
Professor Adeleke: I accept the error.

Aregbesola’s s Counsel: I said the difference is 6,000?

Professor Adeleke: I extracted it from exhibit 186.

Oyinlola’s Counsel: What you have in R27 (18), table 2B is G51141102. Is that correct?
Professor Adeleke: Yes.
Oyinlola’s Counsel: In Exhibit R28 (17), the number you are supposed to extract is G51147102?
Professor Adeleke: It is correct.

Oyinlola’s Counsel: The difference between the two figures is 6,000?

Professor Adeleke: Yes, it was because of the wrong way it was extracted.

The matter was then adjourned till Friday.

By kazeem mohammed

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