The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Rivers State has stood down the continuation of collation of Saturday’s governorship election results in the state until Monday.
Prof. Akpofure Rim-Rukeh, the State Returning Officer and Vice Chancellor of Federal University of Petroleum Resources (FUPRE) in Effurun, Delta State, announced the development on Sunday in Port Harcourt.
He said the collation would continue by 10 a.m. on Monday because results from six Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state were yet to be presented by the areas’ Electoral Officers (EOs).
The LGAs whose results were being awaited for presentations are Asari-Toru, Akuku-Toru, Degema, Port Harcourt City, Ahoada West and Obio/Akpor.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate was leading in all the 17 LGAs whose results were presented to the state returning officer.
The LGAs which presented their results were Tai, Opobo Nkoro, Ghokana, Eleme, Ogu-Bolo, Ikwere, Oyigbo, Etche, Khana, Bonny, Ahoada East, Omuma, Okrika, Andoni, Abuah-Uduah, Emoha and Ogba/Egbema/Ndoni.
Also, INEC has postponed the collation of results of Saturday’s governorship elections in Ebonyi State.
Mr Ogechi Onyeka, Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Ebonyi State, who announced this on Sunday in Abakaliki, said that the commission would resume by 10 a.m. on Monday.
The REC said, “for the one local government that is remaining, we are going to take from what it contains in the Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
“So, we will allow them to go through the result sheet and come up with their result and where it fails to tally with IReV, we will cancel the local government. We are meeting by 10 O’clock tomorrow,” she said.
The Commission has announced 12 local government areas out of the 13 councils of the state.
The results so far announced by INEC showed that the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Mr Francis Nwifuru, won in 10 of the 12 local government areas while APGA and PDP won in one local government area each.
