ENUGU RERUN: VOTERS BEAT INEC STAFF TO PULP FOR COMING WITH PRE-FILLED RESULT SHEETS
Voters who trooped out to exercise their franchise have beaten an official of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to pulp for allegedly coming with pre-filled result-sheets to a polling unit.
According to witnesses, in the pre-filled result, the electoral umpire allocated 443 votes to the Peoples Democratic Party candidate (PDP), 31 votes to All Progressives Congress (APC) and 15 votes to Labour Party candidates for the Igboeze North/Udenu Federal Constituency.
INEC is conducting the re-run election in the constituency following the ruling of Appeal Court which cancelled the election in some polling units over the non-inclusion of the logo of the All Progressives Congress in the Form EC8A.
However, despite INEC officials arriving late in many polling units for the elections, INEC polling officers came without results or pre-filled results especially in polling units that have a great number of voters.
At Igogoro, Ozzi Ward 2 Unit 004, the presiding officer was lucky to have left with his life after the voters discovered the already filled result sheet even before the commencement of voting.
SaharaReporters learnt that the INEC presiding officer, who gave his name Mr Ronald Ugwudani from Igbo-Etiti Council area, said the pre-filled result sheet was given to him from the local government by INEC.
Trouble for Ugwundani started when the angry voters asked him to show them result sheets following the news that so many other polling units havd no result sheets. According to eyewitnesses, Ugwundani now told the voters that his SPO was coming with it. Not convinced irate voters pounced on him and he brought out the result sheets from his bag.
“I told them that the SPO will bring it, so, they forced me to search my bag, I don’t know that the result sheet is inside my bag. I showed them the result sheet and they wanted to kill me,” the INEC Staff was overheard narrating in a video.
The state Resident Electoral Commissioner, Dr Chukwuemeka Chukwu, had told journalists on Friday in Enugu that the commission had deployed over 700 staff and ad hoc staff as well as 700 armed security men for the re-run.
superCleanworks: He can do it with boldness because he knows that After they finish protesting, nothing will happen.
The RERUN was cancelled once again.
And they didn't give the name of the Dammed EO who ran away with the original Results-Sheets..
The REC even came around and started quoting fake Electoral-Act for them.
A lot of names were mentioned here. But as usual, they will just downplay the whole thing and sweep everything under the carpet as usual, and pretend like nothing happened.
VOTERS PROTEST IN ENUGU AS INEC COMMISSIONER ALLEGEDLY REPLACES ORIGINAL RESULT SHEETS MEANT FOR BY-ELECTIONS
Electorates in communities where rerun elections are billed to hold in Enugu State on Saturday protested against the alleged replacement of the original result sheets meant for the conduct of the by-elections by the Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state, Dr Chukwuemeka Chukwu.
SaharaReporters which monitored the by-elections in the state reports that late arrival of materials and missing result sheets characterised the rerun elections across the state.
It was observed that only polling units where there is less than 20 voters that result sheets where provided. This development led to electorates refusing to participate in the election, demanding for the results-sheets.
As at 9:30 am, hundreds of supporters of the Labour Party (LP) in the state started protest, chanting songs and demanding that the result sheets be provided before the commencement of the election at Robinson Street, Uwani, Enugu, for Enugu South Urban state constituency.
The situation was also the same in Igbo-Eze North LGA of the state where by-election for Igbo-Eze North and Udenu Federal Constituency was supposed to take place as voters in Umuida, Imufu, Umuosai in Umuitodo Ward 3, and other communities in Enugu-Ezike town.
The electorates insisted that no election would take place in the area without the original result sheets.
Trouble had started, when Labour Party (LP) stakeholders and supporters got a wind of an alleged diversion of the result sheets by the INEC and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Consequently, they stormed the election venues at Robinson Street, Uwani, Enugu, and began chanting songs, and demanding that the result sheets be released for the election to commence.
As the LP supporters marched in protest before hundreds of a combined security operatives, their PDP counterparts, demonstrated, insisting that they have seen the result sheets and that the election should commence.
While the logjam continued, the state commissioner of police, Kanayo Uzuegbu, the state director of the Department of Security, senior military officers, and all security agencies were present in the election meant for only eight polling units at Robinson Street Primary School, Uwani.
The demonstrations continued until around 12 noon, when the REC, Dr Chukwuemeka Chukwu, came and addressed the agents of the various political parties.
He told them that the original result sheets had been LOST and that he had provided an alternative.
The REC allegedly quickly brought out a photocopy of the 2023 general elections results sheet and told them that he would sign and countersign for that to be used for the election.
However, the agents of LP vehemently rejected the move by the REC to use the 2023 election result sheets for the by-election.
Speaking to newsmen, Chukwu said, "This morning, information reaching to me has it that there's an issue of missing result booklet for voting to start.
"The political party demanded that, in line with the Electoral Act, every material for the election should be shown to them before the voting will commence.
"When I got the information, I quickly ran to this place to calm the situation and proffer solution for the problem.
"In line with the Electoral Act, if the result sheet is mutilated or missing, what we're going to issue is replacement.
"So, I'm here to tell the world that whatever any person is saying, in line with the law, if any election material is altered before election is concluded, INEC has every right to issue a replacement result sheets or any material in that category.
"So, here is the replacement of the result sheets. So, I'm going to stamp it and I'm going to sign and countersign it so that voting will commence.
"Voting is going to commence very shortly in this Uwani. What we are conducting here is only polling units," he explained.
When journalists asked him how the result sheets got missing, the REC stopped talking and left the interview session.
One of the LP polling unit agents, Arinze Ogbodo, rejected the move. He said: "When we came here we requested to see the materials for the election result sheet for the election to enable us start the election but they refused. They refused to show us the original result sheet. Now the REC from the INEC came here and told us that he will sign the photocopy of the 2023 result sheet for us to use for the election. He told us that the EO that is incharge of this result sheet has absconded.
"There is no way in the history of an election you conduct election with photocopy of election result. Where is the original result and where is the EO who is an official of the commission?
They should produce him because at the end of the day, the said result sheet will be produced and they will use it to announce the result. We will not accept it.
“What we are saying is that if INEC is not ready for this election, they should cancel it and fix a fresh date for the election. We will not accept this," he said.
In Enugu-Ezike and Ubolo-Afor 20 polling units in four Wards had no result sheets for the election.
As of the time of filing this report by 3:20 pm, voting was yet to commence in many places scheduled for election in Enugu State, especially, where turnout were quite huge.
SoNature: Dude, stop disturbing yourself with election matters. With this crop of leaders, don't expect any positive changes.
I told you that we can only start having free and fair elections in Nigeria when Nigerians understand that thwarting the will of the people is evil and election riggers are sentenced to death. Until then, our election will remain a big joke.
Their evil choices affect us everyday. That's why it's really not good for us to take our eyes totally away from them.