Labour Party rejects Enugu governorship election results

At Labor Party (LP) in Enugu State has rejected the results of Saturday’s governorship election in the state announced by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

PREMIUM TIMES reported that the candidate for governor People’s Democratic Party (PDP) in the country, Peter Mbah, was announced as the winner of the election on Wednesday night.

Mr. Mbah scored 160,895 votes to beat his closest opponent, the LP candidate, Chijioke Edeoga, who got 157,552 votes.

The candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Frank Nweke Jr, got 17,983 votes to come third, while the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Uche Nnaji, was fourth, with 14,575 votes.

This newspaper also reported that Maduebibisi Iwe, the returning officer for the election, announced the results after completing the collection of results from two local government areas in the state which were earlier suspended by INEC due to alleged irregularities.

The collation of the governorship election results from the two council areas – Nkanu East and Nsukka – was delayed by INEC on Monday, after the agent of the LP party, Eugene Edeoga, stated, in a petition to the commission, that the Bimodal Voter Registration System (BVAS machine) was not used during the election in Nkanu East Council Area and there was a case of over-voting.

His PDP counterpart, Festus Uzo, made similar allegations against the results of Nsukka Council Area.

INEC, however, denied Mr. Uzo’s petition during the review of the results, but stuck with Mr. Edeoga, the LP agent, according to the returning officer.

Mr Iwe, a professor and vice-chancellor of Umudike University of Agriculture, said the commission determined that BVAS machines were used during the election in Nkanu East Council Area, but found that there were cases of over-voting in the area. .

The commission, he said, reduced the results from the 30,350 votes previously given to PDP candidates to 16,956 votes, after reviewing the results from the council areas.

It also increased the LP candidate’s initial score of 1,855 votes in the council area to 1,864 votes.

The officer returned and announced that Mr. Mbah won the election.

LP responded

In response, the LP said it would not accept the results, saying the March 18 gubernatorial election was marred by “widespread and wholesale rigging, intimidation of voters, doctors, mutilation and manipulation of results.”

In a statement on Friday by the spokesperson of the state, Onuora Odo, LP reiterated the position that the BVAS machine was not used in the electoral process in Nkanu East Council Area and the results of the area were “padded”.

ALSO READ: PDP supporters protest in Kaduna, say APC rigged governorship election

“It is also noted that during the collation of the results, the Nkanu East results showed a monumental disparity between the number of registered voters and the number of votes cast, but the clearly compromised INEC decided to ignore the provisions of the Election. It acted and proceeded to announce the clear results despite complaints from the opposition parties,” LP said.

He claimed that the declaration of the results was deliberately delayed to “enable further manipulation,” adding that the party decided to register its dissatisfaction with “electoral irregularities and violations enabled and mobilized by heavy financial inducements.”

“Let it be known that our great party is ready to deepen the roots of democracy in Nigeria and we cannot raise our hands and allow this level of electoral theft to go unchallenged.

“In the moment, the position of the party will be known because we have started to collect the facts to do what is needed. Of course, this is a violation of democracy,” he said.