Voters in Abia, Enugu, Adamawa and Kebbi states have been kept waiting over the outcome of last Saturday’s governorship election.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is expected to fix dates for re-runs in some Kebbi and Adamawa polling units.

It is unclear yet what decision will be taken regarding the collation of results in Abia and Enugu, where the process was suspended due to alleged irregularities and over-voting.

INEC on Sunday said it would review the exercise in Obingwa Local Government Area (LGA) of Abia following an invasion of the collation centre and destruction of electoral materials.

Chief Press Secretary to the INEC Chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, said the Commission would take a position on the states soon.

He said: “The Commission is alive and up to its responsibilities. It will meet very soon to decide on that and Nigerians will be informed about the decision as we have always done.”

Asked when that will be, he said: “Very soon. Very soon can mean tomorrow or the next hour. It can mean next week. One thing I can tell you is that it will be very soon.”

National Commissioner, Festus Okoye, denied that the commission has accepted the results from Obingwa.

He told our reporter that INEC was not done with the review.

He added that the results collation would resume as soon as the commission was done with the appraisal.

The commission is also expected to decide on the conduct of supplementary elections to some National Assembly offices that were declared inconclusive.

It was learnt that the Abia election dispute has been referred to INEC headquarters in Abuja for resolution.

INEC spokesman in Abia State, Mr. Bamidele Onyetunji, said they were awaiting further directives from national headquarters.

INEC also dismissed as fake reports (not by The Nation) that its Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, called the Presiding Officer in Abia to direct her to subvert the will of the people.

Oyekanmi said in a statement that the Returning Officer only wanted an official communication on the decision to suspend the collation.

He added: “The Chairman then directed that pending the delivery of the hard copies, the soft copies of the Commission’s letter be forwarded immediately to the Resident Electoral Commissioner of Enugu State and the Administrative Secretary of Abia State.

“The Returning Officer for Abia State then directed that the content of the letter should be read aloud by the Administrative Secretary in the presence of agents of political parties, observers, the media and security personnel at the Collation Centre.

“This is what is now being mischievously interpreted as a directive to the Returning Officer on some phantom criteria at variance with the approved guidelines. There is nothing like that.

“In fact, the content of the letter is basically the same as the Commission’s Press Release dated Monday 20th March 2023 which has since been uploaded to the Commission’s social media platforms and is already in the public domain.

“The public should disregard the story as fake news.”

Labour Party (LP) governorship candidate in Abia, Dr Alex Otti, is pleased with the suspension of results collation in Obingwa.

Addressing his supporters at his Campaign Office in Umuahia, he said: “We received a report from INEC that they have suspended the collation from Obingwa LGA and also postponed the return and declaration, which should have happened today.

“I think it is appropriate that INEC did that.

“If you have followed all the things that have happened since Saturday, it is very clear that Obingwa LGA has turned itself into a terror.

“And it is not Obingwa indigenes or residents. It’s thugs that were imported from outside Abia.”

Otti said aside from holding INEC officials hostage, the thugs also battered an LP LGA agent, Dr George Chidozie.

At a briefing in Abuja, he alleged a plot to rig the election.

From the results released on the INEC website, Otti won 10 of the 16 LGAs.

He polled 171,747 votes while Okey Ahiwe of the PDP scored 79,477 after winning in five LGAs.

The LP candidate said: “What has happened this time around is that the BVAS has demystified Obingwa Local Government in Abia State.

“In 2015, when I contested for the first time, the PDP produced 82,000 votes from Obingwa and overturned the victory that the Abia people gave us.

“This time around, they want to do the same thing but the BVAS proved that there are no more than 30,000 votes in Obingwa…

“Sixteen LGAs have been collated out of 17 and the total votes that LP scored out of the 16 LGAs is about 172,000 and that of PDP is less than 80,000.

“So anyhow you flip and dice it with the numbers they have written, it still doesn’t have the support that would upturn our victory.

“It’s also important to underscore the point that we believe that INEC will do the right thing.

“All the other local governments that have been declared through the BVAS machine for accreditation, it is our firm belief that INEC will not change the rules in the middle of the game.

“We are calling on our supporters to remain calm and wait on INEC to finish their review and release the results.”

Enugu

The ‘Occupy INEC’ protest over the alleged manipulation of the results in Enugu entered the second day yesterday.

Hundreds of PDP and LP supporters took over the roads leading to the INEC office in Enugu.

While the PDP supporters mounted several canopies with food and drinks at the WAEC Junction just before the state headquarters of INEC, their LP counterparts did the same at Agric Bank, just before The Good Shepherd Anglican Cathedral.

Supporters of PDP governorship candidate, Peter Mbah, who were led by a former member of the House of Representatives, USA Igwesi, told reporters they would continue the protest until a declaration is made.

They accused INEC of adopting a different rule from the one it used during the national collation of presidential election results where it ignored complaints from the agents of opposition parties.

Igwesi also accused INEC of usurping the functions of the Election Petition Tribunals.

He said: “We don’t need any soothsayer to tell us that Peter Mbah won the election. We’re surprised that INEC is still holding this result undeclared.”

The “Obidient Movement,” and supporters of LP governorship candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, insisted he must be declared the winner.

Enugu State Chairman of LP, Casmir Agbo, said they did not want PDP to manipulate the outcome of the election.

“We won convincingly in all the 17 local government areas. We won by more than 11,000 votes. We have seen the results.

“The only problem is the Nkanu East, where they padded the results and wanted INEC to accept it. But we won’t allow that to happen,” he said.

The Coalition of South East Youth Leaders (COSEYL) expressed concern over the delay in announcing the Enugu and Abia results.

Its leader, Goodluck Ibem, said in a statement: “We call on INEC, not to delay, but announce the rightful winners of the governorship election in Abia and Enugu states to calm the frayed nerves in both states.” (The Nation)

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