INEC Rejects Padded Governorship Results From Abia, Enugu States

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reportedly rejected the Abia and Enugu States Governorship Election results that were padded and didn’t conform with the actual accredited voters during the polls.

It will be recalled that the Labour Party agents and governorship candidate in Enugu State opposed results collation of Nkanu East council, claiming that the votes were padded.

This was as political thugs reportedly disrupted collation of results in Obingwa council area of Abia State.

These have led to the suspension of the exercise by the electoral umpire on Sunday in the two states.

An INEC official told SaharaReporters that the commission had rejected the allegedly padded results after a careful review of the exercise on Tuesday, and wanted the right things to be done.

“For Abia State, INEC ordered that the results should be announced based on the accredited voters,” the source said.

On Enugu’s case, the commission according to the source has similarly ordered for the review of the results of the Enugu State Governorship Election of last Saturday.

SaharaReporters had reported that the collation of which was suspended following controversy over the alleged padding of results from Nkanu East Council, which returned over 30,000 votes in favour of Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Mr Peter Mbah, while only about 7,000 voters were accredited in the area by the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).

The suspension of the announcement of results of Abia and Enugu gubernatorial elections had heightened tension in the two states.

The supporters of PDP’s Mbah have been calling on INEC to announce the results that had been collated and declare their candidate the winner, saying those who opposed the result should go to court.

In Abia, Dr Alex Otti of the Labour Party had won a total of 10 out of the 16 Local Government Area results so far declared by INEC, while his counterpart in Enugu, Hon Chijioke Edeoga, has won nine local governments and is currently in the lead in the state.