The March 18 2023 guber election in Enugu State took three days to be declared due to alleged non-use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System and over voting in Nkanu East LGA. The state returning officer, Prof Maduebibisi Iwe, VC, University of Agriculture, Umudike, and also head of Scripture Union, Nigeria, was about to announce the results when Labour Party’s agent for the LGA, Eugene Edeoga, Ph.D, said the accreditation and voting were manually done.
Iwe henceforth suspended the exercise, and referred the matter to INEC headquarters in Abuja, where the results were reviewed and reduced from 30, 350 to 16, 956, implying indeed that the result would have been declared if it were not timely observed.
“Posting of ECA 8 which is the result sheets of polling units should be done immediately after the collation. Party agents are to sign them, issue their respective copies, and then a copy is pasted on the wall for public views. The result will then be transmitted to the IREV portal. If the network is poor, the exercise is shifted to the LGA collation centre. The uploading should be completed and submitted and in real time.
However, a stalwart of the PDP in the state, Barr Nwabueze Ugwu, said, “The work of INEC is to collate results and declare, and not to interrogate such results. That aspect belongs to the judiciary, and that is why we have the tribunal. It is there that the use of BVAS will be determined. It is the same thing INEC chairman did in declaring Tinubu the winner and telling the aggrieved to go to court.”Sabinus Oscar Eze served as the collation officer for Owo Ward.
“The collation officer for that ward brought his results, and actually informed me that BVAS machines were not used because at some point, BVAS started malfunctioning. I asked him if he filled any form in that regard. He said he had written a letter, but the letter did not get to me. The letter was sent to the electoral officer of that LGA. The collation officer collated the results, and gave them to me. I copied what contained in the sheet into my own.
One of the ad-hoc staff, who was interviewed undercover, said, “When we left for the LGA, we met the SPO. She called us aside, and told us to deliver PDP candidate. When the election started, there was intimidation. We had to call soldiers on phone. When they came, everywhere was calm. When they left, everything started again. In my polling unit, LP won. When we got to the council headquarters, it was an open field. We waited for the SPO to arrive. Some LP agents came there.
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