INEC declares PDP’s Mbah winner of Enugu gov’ship poll
Peter Mbah, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on Wednesday, declared winner of March 18 gubernatorial election held in Enugu by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Mbah polled 160,895 votes to defeat his closest rival, Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party (LP), who garned 157,552 votes.
Frank Nweke Jnr of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) scored 17,983 while Chief Uche Nnaji of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 14,575 votes to come a distant third and fourth respectively.
Prof Maduebibisi Ofo-Iwe, the Returning Officer and the Vice Chancellor of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, while announcing the result, said “That Mbah Peter Ndubuisi of Peoples Democratic Party, having satisfied the requirement of the law is hereby declared the winner and returned elected.”
It could be recalled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on Monday suspended the collation of results and declaration of the winner of the poll following allegations of over-voting and results manipulation in Nkanu East and Nsukka Local Government Areas of the state.
Labour Party State agent, Dr Eugene Edeoga on Sunday during the collation of local government election results, raised objection over the result of Nkanu East Local Government. He had claimed that the result of the local government was heavily padded to manipulate the outcome of the election in favour of the PDP candidate.
He insisted that the result of the local government should be cancelled.
Subsequently, the PDP State collation agent, Dr Festus Uzo also made similar allegations about Nsukka LGA, where the candidate of the labour party was leading with over 30,000 votes.
Consequently, on Monday following a series of protests from both supporters of the Labour Party candidate and the PDP candidate, the INEC national headquarters suspended the collation to review the results of the two local government areas in the issue.
However, on Wednesday night, the INEC returning officer, Prof Iwe said “this afternoon I was requested to return to Enugu that the commission has concluded and resolved the issues in Nsukka and Nkanu East. We received a particular petition about Nsukka and Nkanu East local government.
“The petition against Nsukka was overruled by the commission. However, the petition about Nkanu East was sustained.
“The commission found that there was over-voting. From 30,350 the commission reduced it to 16,956 votes for PDP.
“The Labour Party was 1,855, after review, it became 1,864 votes that is the summary of what happened in Abuja. And based on the fact that the petition of Nkanu East is sustained we call on the collation officer of Nkanu East to come forward to collate the results of the Nkanu East.”
Reacting, the labour party agent, Dr Eugene Edeoga, said “I am glad that the case made against Nsukka is not sustained. And the case made against Nkanu East was sustained.
However, the rule is that when over-voting is established and the non-use of BVAS in the election had been established, the penalty is a cancellation. I want to ask whether the rules have changed.”
The returning officer, however, said that this is the decision of the electoral commission.
However, having won the Nkanu East local government, the PDP candidate has now won nine local governments with Edeoga of LP taking eight local government areas.
The Labour Party had expressed optimism of winning the Enugu election which like Abia was marred in controversy.
Earlier on Wednesday, the commission had assured Nigerians that the final results would be declared within hours.
Labour Party’s Alex Otti was declared winner in Abia.
However, with the development, only Kebbi and Adamawa are left without winners among the 28 states where Saturday’s election held.
INEC had declared the elections in both state inconclusive but is yet to fix a date for rerun.
