Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Fintiri, has said that the Independent National Electoral Commission should be accused of violating the Electoral Act.
Fintiri, who is the Chairman of the Edo PDP National Campaign Council, stated this on Sunday during a press conference held at the party’s situation room in Benin City, the Edo State capital.
The Adamawa governor stated that PDP agents had been denied access to collation centers, raising further questions about the transparency of the electoral process.
Fintiri, Fintiri who was flagged by the Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki and his Taraba State counterpart, Agbu Kefas, called on INEC to follow its own rules and ensure that the election results were collated fairly and transparently.
He said, “The collation process was violently interrupted in several local government areas across the state. In Edo South, local government collation processes were stopped in Oredo, Ikpoba-Okha, and Egor and moved illegally to the State Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Benin on the instructions of an Assistant Inspector General (AIG) in complete breach of the statutory collation process.
“Affected party agents and representatives were then ordered to converge on the INEC State Headquarters in Aduwawa, Ikpoba/ Okha Local Government Area for the completion of the collation exercise.
“Upon arrival, agents of the PDP were not allowed into INEC State Office for the exercise. On the other hand, agents of the APC were allowed unfettered access into the INEC premises to participate in the collation process.
“This was also in breach of the Electoral Act section on neutrality as well as the rules and regulations published for these elections.”
The Adamawa governor also read out the figures from the party’s collation agent, dismissing the claim that he announced the governorship election results.
He said, “I did not announce results; I only informed the public of the exact figure from our collation agent that was ongoing before INEC disrupted the process, so INEC should be accused of violating the Electoral Act, not me.
“What we’re asking from INEC is to follow their rules, REC has no business to announce results or move collation to INEC headquarters. This is our stand and we will go back to consult.”
Fintiri claimed that the party agents collated results from 12 out of the 18 local government areas before the process was marred by irregularities.
He said, “At the point of the truncation of the collation exercise, these are the results that have been collected:
1 Esan Central LG – APC-8,618, PDP-10,990
2 Esan North-East LG – APC 10,648, PDP-12,522
3 Esan South-East LG – APC-8,398, PDP-14,199
4 Esan West LG – APC-12,952, PDP-11,004
5 Igueben LG – APC-5,407, PDP-8,470
6 Etsako Central LG – APC-10,990, PDP-8,618
7 Orhionmwon LG – APC-16,059, PDP-16,614
8 Ovia North-East LG – APC-13,225, PDP-15,311
9 Ovia South-West LG – APC-10,150, PDP-10,260
10 Owan West LG – APC-12,277, PDP-11,284
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11 Owan East LG – APC-19,380, PDP-14,189
12 Uhunmwonde LG – APC-8,673, PDP-9,639
From the the figures he reeled out, Ighodalo polled 143,100 votes while the APC candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo recorded 136,777 votes.
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