The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mahmood Yakubu, has been contacted by Natasha Akpoti-Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party to review the results of the recently completed Kogi Central senatorial election, Entrepreneurng report.
In a letter that she wrote and dated March 1, 2023, Akpoti-Uduaghan requests a review of the declaration and return of Abubakar Ohore, the APC candidate, as the winner of the senatorial election held on February 25.
The APC candidate was incorrectly returned with 52,132 votes and declared the victor of the election in the senatorial district, while our client was incorrectly credited with 51,763 votes, Akpoti-Uduaghan claimed in the letter submitted by her attorney, Johnson Usman.
The letter claims that after the error, the election results from the duplicate result sheets were carefully and meticulously reviewed, revealing that votes had been tampered with and modified in favor of the APC candidate.
She asserted that three voting places in the state’s Ajaokuta Local Government Area’s Ganaja Township Ward were the sites of the allegedly manipulated results.
It was said that because the candidate with the most votes was not named the winner,
“the total result of the unlawful computation is clear in the return and announcement of Engr. Abubakar Ohere as the winner of the election of the Kogi Central senatorial district.”
However, according to Section 65 (1) of the Electoral Act of 2022, “from the foregoing, we have our client’s firm instructions to demand and hereby demand a review of the declaration and return of Engineer Abubakar Sadiku Ohere made by the Returning Officer for Senatorial District because if the 993 votes wrongly credited to the APC candidate are deducted from 52,132 votes wrongly credited to him, his total scored would have been 51,199 votes and In this case, our client would have received 1,530 votes to win the election.
The combined result of the aforementioned analyses demonstrates that the Declaration and Return issued by the Returning Officer for the Kogi Central senatorial district was against the law, specifically Sections 51(2) & (3), 66 and 70 of the Electoral Act, 2022, among other provisions.
Nevertheless, these legal transgressions significantly impacted the election’s stated outcome, resulting in a false declaration and the return of the APC candidate in any other circumstance. Given the overall number of valid votes cast in the election, Our Client should have been recognized as the victor.
In conclusion, the INEC head is thereby urged to use his good office in examining the foregoing and announce her as the winner of the Kogi Central senatorial district election conducted on February 25, 2023.
Source: Punch
