Drama as Returning Officer orders arrest of Electoral Officers while declaring results

There was drama on Monday at the Imo State Governorship Election Collation Centre in Owerri as the Returning Officer, Prof. Francis Ezeonu, ordered the arrest of the two Electoral Officers for Ohaji-Egbema Local Government, Mr. Christian Ogbuagu and Mr. A Ehire.
He directed police officers around to arrest them for allegedly altering results of Ward 9 in the local government, an action believed to have favoured the candidate of Action Alliance (AA), Uche Nwosu.
Nwosu is the son-in-law of Governor Rochas Okorocha.
Party agents accused the duo of altering the results with 4,513 votes.
In the alteration, 3,711 votes were allocated to AA, 178 to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and 88 to the All Progressives Congress (APC), among others.
While announcing the result, the party agents raised the alarm, an action which disrupted the process for about 30 minutes.
The party agents protested that the figures reeled out for the ward were different from the ones with them. One of them said: “After the election, result copies were given to party agents and policemen. Returning Officer sir, I want you to crosscheck the figures this man is reeling out and the ones with us”.
The Returning Officer ordered the duo to produce the original result and they declared that it was in their car outside. They were ordered to get the result from the car.
By then, Atuama tried to calm down the agents who were restive.
When the duo returned, it was discovered that the figures for Ward 9 were different from the figures with the agents and the police.
When asked what led to the difference, Ehire and Ogbuagu told the Returning Officer that they discovered an error after copies of the original results had been given to party agents and the police.
The Returning Officer declared openly that they had no power under the Electoral Act “to change any figure in the result after copies had been given to party agents and the police”.
He ordered their arrest immediately and they were taken away by policemen.
He also directed some of the collation officers in the hall to remove the 4513 votes from the final figure.
Earlier, collation and announcement of results were abruptly suspended, following violent protests.
Trouble started when the Returning Officer from Ideato South Local Government was asked by Ezeonu to commence the announcement of Ideato South result.
No sooner had the Returning Officer sat down to announce the result than the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) agent, Mr Uche Onyeagocha, and his counterparts, Paschal Onwukaike of Democratic Alternative (DA) and Steve Asimobi of Redemption Party (RP), protested the announcement of the results from Ideato South.
This development led to serious argument where Onyeagocha alleged that the Ideato South result favoured the Action Alliance candidate with an outrageous figure and as such should not be announced.
A verbal altercation that resulted from both PDP, AA, AD and RP culminated in the other trio tearing the governorship election result sheets for Ideato South.
Onyeagocha also, while rejecting the announcement of the results, claimed that the PDP and other party agents were intimidated at the Ideato South LGA collation centre and prayed that the REC cancel the result.
In the midst of the violence that ensued, Onyeagocha and others were arrested by security operatives while Ezeonu and Prof. Francis Otonta were whisked away to safety, leading to the abrupt stoppage of announcement of results.
Before the fracas, results from 11 LGAs out of the 27 LGAs have so far been announced.