The declaration last night (Wednesday, march 22, 2023) of candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State, Dr. Peter Mbah, as winner of the March 18 governorship election in the state was not without its drama and controversy.

The Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state, Prof Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe, declared Mbah the winner at the resumption of the final collation of governorship election results in Enugu, the Enugu State capital, just 48 hours after INEC suspended the exercise in the state.

Before the announcement, Prof. Iwe had said he was requested to come to Enugu because the commission had concluded the review of the results of Nkanu East and Nsukka LGAs, which were under contention.

He said: “We have come back to conclude the collation of results. We received some petitions particularly against Nsukka and Nkanu East LGAs and these things were taken to Abuja for resolution.

“The petition against Nsukka was overruled. That means whatever anybody had against Nsukka was not substantiated

“However, the petition against Nkanu East was sustained by the commission

“Before the review, we had 30,350 votes for PDP from Nkanu East LGA. But after the review, PDP’s votes now reduced to 16,956.

“For LP, the votes they had on Monday was 1855 and after the review, it increased to 1864”.

Based on the fact that the petition against Nkanu East was sustained, Iwe invited the collation officer for Nkanu East LGA to call out the results after the review.

However, LP’s collation agent, Eugene Edeoga, objected to the continuation, saying that it was against the provisions of the Electoral Act to still release results from a particular unit after it had been discovered to have been over-voting.

But his objections were overruled by Prof Iwe, who claimed that he was under authority “to do what I’m doing here this evening”.

Iwe declared that Mbah scored 160,895 votes to defeat his main rival, Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party (LP), who polled 157,552 votes.

Frank Nweke Jnr of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) scored 17,983 while Chief Uche Nnaji of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 14,575 votes to come a distant third and fourth respectively.

See results by parties:

Registered voters: 2112793

Number of accredited voters: 381971

AA : 330

AAC : 146

ADC : 1160

ADP : 382

APC: 14,575

APGA: 17,983

APM: 358

APP: 158

PP : 319

LP : 157,552

NNPP: 2107

NRM: 854

PDP: 160,895

PRP: 850

SDP: 65

YPP: 397

ZLP: 332

Total Valid Votes: 358463

Rejected votes: 9088

Total Votes cast: 367551

(Adapted from a report by The Nation)

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