Ahmadu Umar, the collation officer for Ihiala Local Government Area, has said the Anambra governorship election conducted on Saturday did not hold in the area.
Umar disclosed this when he was called up by Professor Florence Obi, the Chief Returning Officer for the election and the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar, on Sunday to present the election result.
The collation officer, however, did not provide any reason for the non-conduct of the election in Ihiala LGA, which has 148,407 registered voters.
There were reports on Saturday that election officials in some polling units in the LGA were attacked by hoodlums, which led to the suspension of the exercise.
Meanwhile, Dr Michael Otu, the collation officer of Orumba North Local Government Area of the state, claimed that he signed the result sheet for the LGA under duress.
Speaking at the INEC collation hall in Akwa, the Anambra State capital, Otu insisted that there was no election in the entire local government area, saying that the scoresheets were mutilated and he was made to sign a fake result at gunpoint.
According to the collation officer, a crisis fomented by policemen led to his signing the result under duress.
He accused the electoral officer that was supposed to work with him of colluding with some people to scuttle the election results in the area.
He said: “I signed a report I didn’t believe in. I signed it under duress. I was teargassed. I was locked in the toilet, until a policeman smuggled me out.
“I could not even go out to ease myself. They were monitoring me up and down. At a point, I saw that my life was in danger, so, I have to sign the results they prepared.
“I called out to my colleagues to tell them that I was in danger here.
“I am lucky to be alive. I was teargassed and as a BP patient, I nearly lost my life. I was forced to sign a result which wasn’t collated by me. The Polling Officer, Comfort Omoroge, who worked with me, compromised.”
Responding to the allegation, the electoral officer, Omoroge, accused the returning officer of not knowing anything about collating election results.
“This man here has said so many things against me. But I observed that he has no experience in collating election results.
“This man does not know his left from his right. The result is full of mutilation. He does not know the difference between conducting election and collating results.”
Speaking on the development, Professor Obi said she was told about the crisis in the local government area.
In a slightly similar development, Dr Gabriel Othong, the collation officer of the Idemili South Local Government of Area of the state, claimed that a supervisory presiding officer carted away 41 results sheets in the ongoing Anambra Governorship election.
He mentioned the affected areas as Oba ward 1, Oba ward 11 and Akukwu ward, all in Idemili south LGA Area of Anambra.
He also noted that that the electoral officials were not deployed in some of the polling units due to cases of gunshots.
“One of the SPOs carted away 41 result sheets out of the 42 result sheets meant for the 89 polling units in the affected wards.
“Over 40, 000 voters were not able to vote in the affected areas due to the development.”
But according to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN), Ebere Obiakor, the agent for the All Progressives Congress (APC), however countered the collation officer, saying that election was held in the affected areas but the results were not collated.
But Alex Obiogbolu, the collation agent for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Victor Umeh of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), debunked Obiakor’s statement, saying there was no election in any of the affected places.
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