Anambra Poll: Returning officer suspends collation

COLLATION and declaration of the winner of the Anambra governorship election was last night suspended by the returning officer, Professor Florence Obi, saying the exercise would be completed after a supplementary election in Ihiala.

There was no election in Ihiala which has over 148000 with over 300 polling units.

The collation officer, who is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar said the supplementary election in Ihiala will take place on Tuesday, 9th November, 2021.

Prof Obi said that based on the constitutional provisions and the electoral act, the supplementary election was necessary to determine the winner of the governorship election.

So far, the candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA, Professor Chukwuma Soludo is leading comfortably with 103946 votes and scored the highest number of votes in 18 of the 20 local government areas whose results were already declared.

The Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate, Mr. Val Ozigbo, who won only Ogbaru local government is second with 51322 votes, while the candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Andy Uba is third with 42942. Senator Ifeanyi Ubah won in Nnewi North local government and he is fourth in the election with 2917 votes.

Meanwhile, the APGA candidate has been declared winner in the controversial Orumba North local government election after a review of the alleged discrepancies in the conduct of the election in the area.

The collation officer for the local government, Michael Otu had alleged that he signed the collated result of the local government under duress following a threat by thugs.

Following the allegation, the collation officer appointed a panel headed by another collation officer, Dr. John Edo to investigate the matter.

After their deliberation, members of the panel discovered anomalies in some polling units in Oko and Awgbu.

In the revised result, APGA polled 4787, APC scored 2672, while PDP polled 1847.

There were 11977 accredited voters in the local government.

Results from the controversial polling units in Oko and Awgbu were removed from the collated result and the remaining figures used in determining the scores of each of the political parties.

Credit: Vanguard