The state collation officer for the governorship election in Enugu State, Prof Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe, has suspended the collation of results emanating from Nkanu East Local Government Area of the state following the allegation of non-usage of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, (BVAS) in the area during the election.
WITHIN NIGERIA gathered that the collation officer for the LGA, Ogbene Nnaemeka, had presented the results of the area with the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Mbah, scoring 30350 votes to beat his Labour Party (LP), counterpart, Chijioke Edeoga,. who got 1855 votes.
However, the agent of the LP, Dr Eugene Edeoga and that of APGA, Ndubuisi Enechionye, as well as others, drew the attention of collation officer and the resident electoral commissioner, Dr. Chukwuemeka Chukwu.
Edeoga 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 no-usage of BVAS. So, we are bringing this to your notice for your notice and action”.
The APGA agent also said, “In the 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.
WITHIN NIGERIA also gathered that the PDP candidate, Mbah, hails from the area.
So far, results from 12 LGAs out of 17 have been collated.