Tension is mounting in Ogbaru federal constituency of Anambra State as a result of the delay by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in announcing the winner of the federal constituency election.
Meanwhile, the resident electoral commissioner (REC) in the state, Dr Elizabeth Agwu has declared the federal constituency election inconclusive citing the inability of the commission to conduct elections in some polling units in the area during the February 25 presidential/national assembly polls.
She also lamented that some of the result sheets containing the number of votes garnered by some of the political parties in the area during the polls were mutilated using correction fluid.
She stated that she had to set up a review team headed by the administrative secretary, Mr Ibe U. Ibe to carry out a thorough evaluation of the results by sourcing the results as uploaded on the INEC server to enable the commission know the actual votes scored by the various parties and also the polling units where elections were not conducted.
She said, “I have received so many petitions concerning the Ogbaru federal constituency election.
“The result sheets presented to me were mutilated with tipex and, there are polling units’ elections that could not be conducted. So, the election in Ogbaru federal Constituency is inconclusive.
“I will make sure that those who are trying to manipulate the Ogbaru federal constituency election result are disappointed. I will not allow anybody, no matter how highly placed, to thwart the votes of the people.
“I would have handed over the EO to the police, but I have set up a team that is headed by the administrative secretary and the team is looking into the results to give me exactly the scores of the parties and areas where election did not take place.
“When they (the administrative secretary’s team) submit their report, I will now send it to my boss at the INEC national headquarters and my boss will direct me on what to do. If I am to go ahead and declare the candidate who is leading, I will do that but if he said we should conduct a re-run election, we will do that because the margin of the lead is slim compared to the score of the candidate who came second.”
