INEC reveals why collation of results in Rivers was stopped

- INEC has revealed why collation of Rivers election results was stopped

- The INEC national commissioner said the stoppage was as a result of problem at the commission’s office in Port Harcourt

- Haruna said before the decision to postpone the announcement of results, INEC had met with security agencies over the matter

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has revealed reasons the collation of results of the Rivers state governorship election which held on Saturday, March 9, was stopped.

Channels TV reports that the INEC national commissioner, Mohammed Haruna, said the electoral body was forced to stop the counting of votes and announcement of the results over what he described as a problem at the commission’s office in Port Harcourt, the state capital.

Legit.ng gathered that he explained that before the decision to postpone the announcement of results, INEC had met with security agencies over the matter.

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“We issued a statement regarding both Rivers and Bauchi states. The reason we had to stop the election was essentially that there were problems in our (INEC) headquarters office in Port Harcourt such that we couldn’t continue with the collation.

“So we decided that we will want to continue with the collation after we have met duly with the security services. We have done that, we had a meeting with them on March 19,” he stated.

His comments come few hours after INEC’s national commissioner, information and voter education, Festus Okoye, released a timeline for the governorship and state House of Assembly elections in Rivers state. He said the resumption for the collation of election result in the state is between April 2 and 5.

Okoye explained that INEC would conduct supplementary election where necessary, and in some constituencies not affected by litigation on April 13. Afterwards, he said the issuance of all outstanding certificates of return would be concluded on April 19.

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Although the commission said it had agreed with stakeholders to use Port Harcourt as the venue of the collation, the electoral body also stated that security agencies had given assurances that they will be neutral and professional.

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Source: Legit.ng