The African Democratic Congress (ADC) in Kogi State, has called on the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, to order the returning officer for Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu Federal Constituency election to declare the candidate of the party as the winner of the last Saturday’s election for the constituency seat.
The acting State chairman of ADC, Comrade Adaji John, made the call while addressing a press conference at the NUJ Press Centre in Lokoja on Monday.
Adaji, who was visibly angry, stated that the ADC candidate, Salman Idris, has won the election with the highest number of votes, but the returning officer, Dr. Baba Ahmed, has refused to declare him the winner.
He lamented that while Nigerians were busy praising the electoral body for the deployment of technologies to curb irregularities, the action of Dr. Ahmed was more or less a fraud as he absconded without declaring the winner of the exercise.
The ADC acting chairman pointed out that there were cancellations in four polling units because of electoral violence and overvoting, adding that after collation of results and counting, the ADC candidate won majority of votes.
He argued that, according to the Electoral Act 2022, if the election was cancelled, it remains cancelled.
Adaji, therefore, expressed surprise hat the election was declared inconclusive, said: “I was so surprised that the news of the declaration of the election began to circulate in the media space. How can INEC declare an election as inconclusive when a duly signed and stamped copy of the result had been issued to the winner but he refused to declare the candidate of African Democratic Congress as the winner.
“We call on Professor Mahmud Yakubu to prevail on returning officer, Dr. Ahmed Baba to declare our candidate Salman Idris the winner of Kabba/Bunu/Ijumu federal constituency seat.”
Meanwhile, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the election, Kolawole Matthew, has refuted the claim by the ADC that the INEC issued a duly signed result sheet for Kabba/Bunu//Ijumu Constituency election.
In a press statement signed by the APC candidate and made available to journalists in Lokoja, Kolawole said what the ADC was circulating was fake.
“Results were cancelled in two other polling units due to over-voting which were not collated by INEC in line with the Electoral Act, and everybody agreed to it. But the results were cancelled in Otu Polling unit and Egbeda-Egga polling units due to violence at the poll.
“We have video evidence of when the electoral umpire declared the result inconclusive. I wonder why the same body who earlier declared the election inconclusive will later issue a signed result that has been circulated by ADC. That shows that the ADC is circulating fake results,” he said.
He urged the ADC to approach INEC to argue their case rather than heating up the polity with their fake results.
Kolawole, however, expressed optimism that he will win the supplementary election as those places cancelled due to violence were his strongholds.
