Politics
THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is yet to take a decision on the inconclusive election for Ogbaru Federal Constituency in Anambra.
Mr Ikechukwu Kingsley, Public Relations Officer of INEC in Awka, said this in an interview with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Awka on Thursday.
NAN reports that the final result of the election conducted in the Federal Constituency on Feb. 25 is yet to be announced for alleged discrepancies and no conduct of the exercise in some locations with substantial vote that could affect the outcome.
Kingsley said the Commission had not taken a definite decision on how to bring the process to conclusion.
“The Commission has not said it will conduct a supplementary election in Ogbaru Federal Constituency.
“Wait until the Commission comes up with a decision on that,” he said.
Meanwhile, Mr Afam Ogene, candidate of the Labour Party in the election, said the umpire did not declare results for the areas where election was concluded before suspending the exercise.
Ogene said he had no problems with holding make-up elections for places where the exercise was not held for whatever reason but regretted that INEC had not taken a decision on the stalemate five days after.
“INEC has the guidelines, they should abide by it, if there are places where elections did not hold, INEC is supposed to do a make-up election in those places within a few days but it is now going to a week and no words from the Commission.
“My worry is that there is third party interference on the matter and with the continued silence, the suspicion becomes more likely to be true because justice delayed is justice denied.
“They are supposed to announce the results from the areas where elections were held, ballots counted, results signed by party agents and collated at the centre,” he said.
On his part, Mr Arinzechukwu Awogu, of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), said they were still waiting for INEC to complete the process in Ogbaru.
Awogu said no fewer than 27,000 prospective voters in 46 polling units did not cast votes because of the inability of INEC to deploy officials and materials to the area.
He said the number of votes in the outstanding areas was significant enough to affect the eventual result of the Constituency and urged the electoral body to hold a supplementary election to accommodate the people.
The APGA candidate said closer scrutiny of some of the result sheets revealed cases of inflation of votes in favour of his opponents and mutilations.
According to him, the Electoral Act (64) (6), states ‘during collation of results, where there is a dispute regarding a collated result or the result of an election from any polling unit, the collation officer or returning officer shall take steps to determine the actual including recollation.”
“Election was not conducted in 46 polling units in Ogbaru Federal Constituency, Anambra state, with over 27,000 PVC collected voters and also have mutilations, widespread irregularities and falsification of results.
“The rigging and manipulation were widespread in the Ogbaru Federal Constituency election, so, we demand recollation of the results from Polling Units and a rerun of the affected Polling Units,” he said.
-(NAN)
KN
Tags: Afam Ogene Arinzechukwu Awogu Ikechukwu Kingsley INEC
