INEC declares PDP’s Mbah winner of Enugu guber poll

THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Mbah, as the winner of the March 18 governorship election in Enugu State.

Mbah was declared winner of the governorship election on Wednesday, March 22, after the results of the controversial Nkanu East Local Government Area were collated.

Mbah polled 160,895 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party (LP), who scored 157,552 votes.

The result is as declared by the Returning Officer of the state Prof Maduebibisi Ofo-Iwe, who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Michael Okpara University of Agriculture Umudike, Abia State.

Ofo-Iwe said, “Mbah Peter Ndubuisi of Peoples Democratic Party, having satisfied the requirement of the law, is hereby declared the winner and returned elected.”

He said that the total number of registered voters in Enugu State is 2,112,793 while the number of accredited voters is 381,971. The total valid votes cast is 358,463 out of which 9,088 were rejected.

The ICIR had on March 20, reported that INEC suspended collation in the state due to allegations of overvoting and results manipulation in Nkanu East and Nsukka local government areas of the state.

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Ofo-Iwe while declaring the result on Wednesday acknowledged that the commission received petitions about Nsukka and Nkanu east local government area.

He 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.”

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Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: umustapha@icirnigeria.com. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M