Enugu Gov poll: Protesters storm INEC headquarters
Two different groups of protesters on Monday morning protested at the Enugu headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the alleged manipulation of the governorship election results by the commission. The protesters, who were supporters of the Labour Party (LP) candidate, Chijioke Edeoga and his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Peter Mbah, blocked various roads leading to the INEC office. They also demanded that their candidates be declared winner of the election.
As early as 8.30 a.m, the protesters arrived in their hundreds at the locations where they started their protest.
While the LP supporters were alleging obvious over-voting in Nkanu East Local Government Area where the PDP candidate, Mbah, comes from and demanded that the results be cancelled, those of the PDP demanded that the collated results be announced with Mbah declared duly winner.
Spokesman of LP protesters and chairman of the party in the state, Casmire Agbo said they were protesting because of the information at their disposal that the state collation officer, Prof Maduebibisi Ofo Iwe had perfected plans to declare PDP winner despite obvious over-voting in Nkanu East LGA.
“We are demanding that Nkanu East LGA where there was over-voting be cancelled because there were about 7000 accredited voters in the area but, they returned over 30,000 votes on favour of PDP there. And we are asking why.
“It’s very obvious at the INEC headquarters that they have manipulated the votes in that region. So, LP is asking them to cancel that particular over-voting and declare Edeoga as the rightful winner of the election.
“From what we saw at the INEC’s IReV portal, a particular polling unit has 216 accredited voters, but that particular unit returned 726 votes in favour of PDP. That is a very obvious manipulation. “They should not announce the result and take us the whole hog of judicial process. They should declare real results so that Enugu people will be happy. Enugu State is not for sale”.
The spokesman of the PDP protesters, Hon. U.S.A. Igwesi, insisted that already collated results be announced and Peter Mbah declared winner of the election.
He said, “We are here to protest the plan by some people to force INEC to cancel the results already collated. Peter Mbah of the PDP has won the election and so, he should be declared winner because he has scored the highest votes.
“INEC and its collation officer do not have the power to cancel the results for whatever.
“Enugu State is a peaceful State, so, the collation officer should not come here to cause crisis. We will not tolerate that”,
It will be recalled that the state returning officer, Prof Maduebibisi Iwe had suspended the declaration of the results after collation was completed following serious complaints by the agents of PDP and LP over non-usage/bypass of BVAS in the Nsukka and Nkanu East LGAs.
He had assured that the process would continue on Monday morning after a review of the petitions made by both parties regarding no-usage of BVAS in Nkanu East and Nsukka LGAs. Nation
