The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has suspended the governorship results from Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State following the allegation of non-usage of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS) in the area during the elections and subsequent presentation of the results of the area by collation officer, Ogbene Nnaemeka.
Ogbene had presented the results with the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Mbah, scoring 30,350 votes and Labour Party (LP) Chijioke Edeoga 1,855 votes.
The state collation officer for the governorship election, Prof Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe, took the decision after the agent of the Labour Party, Dr Eugene Edeoga, APGA agent, Ndubuisi Enechionye, and others, drew the attention of the collation officer and the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr. Chukwuemeka Chukwu, to the challenges they had.
He said: “We have very serious and fundamental objections to the results being announced. Nkanu East did not use BVAS.
“The INEC officers claimed that BVAS did not work and we know what the Electoral Act provides regarding non-usage of BVAS. So, we are bringing this to your notice for your action”.
On his part, the APGA agent said, “In Community Primary School, Owo, Nkanu East, where the PDP candidate comes from, accredited voters were 200. PDP won all the 200 votes. But that 200 was not enough for them, they changed it to 800 when registered voters is 700.
“These figures were obviously changed at the LGA collation centre because the IReV portal is also showing the huge discrepancies. These things were also replicated in all the polling units in Nkanu East LGA. So, look at it again and check if you will accept such results”
All efforts by the agents of the PDP to get the result to be accepted proved abortive as the collation officer, Prof. Iwe suspended the result from the area.
So far, results from 12 LGAs out of 17 have been collated.
