2019 Election: INEC Returning Officer Admits Announcing Plateau Reps Resut Compulsorily.
By Moses Gbande
The Independent National Electoral Commissions, INEC’s Collation/ Rutrning Officer in the February 23rd, 2019 National Assembly election for Pankshin-kanke- Kanam Federal Constituency, in Plateau state, Prof. Joseph Mangut has admitted that the electoral process was marred by irregularities.
Prof. Mangut who made this startling revelations before the National Assembly petitions tribunal holding at the high court (3) in Jos on Monday told the tribunal that his efforts to carry our his mandate as INEC Collation officer ti3 the best of his ability was eventually scarred.
According to him, though, he actually declared Yusuf Adamu Gagdi of the APC in fulfilment of INEC guidelines on the bases of which the election were conducted, admits that he actually failed to comply fully to the satisfaction of INEC complaint procedure, but blame it to disruption that took place at the collation center in Pankshin.
He narrated that on the day of the election, he reported to the collation center, waiting to collate and comput results from the three local governments that made up the constituency.
“The results started coming in on the 24th February, 2019 with Pankshin taken the first lead, followed by Kanke and Kanam in that order”.
He added that, what led to disruption of the process was that after collation exercise were done, he sought for an impute form both parties if there were any complaint over the exercise, and the agents started complaining that there were cases of over voting in Nine (9) polling units of five (5) wards of Kanam local government council.
“They complained that they were not satisfied with the conduct of the election in the area, when asked the returning officer from Kanam to explain the circumstances being alleged by political parties, suddenly the hall went roudy, owing to the disagreements by representatives of political parties. The rowdiness was such that the hall which the exercise took place became un conducive, tension arise to the extend that the disagreement went beyond party agents alone, but almost all the people that were not acounted for in the hall.
” There was a stalement that continuing with the exercise will jeopardize all of us and my colleagues that were in the hall. The tension went beyond the security agents, and we felt that it was time to suspend the exercise. Therefore announced that the exercise was inconclusive to be reconvened the following day when adequate security would have been made”.
The petition which was filed by Hon. Timothy Golu of APC challenging the election of Hon. Yusuf Gagdi of PDP has, Sunday Oyewale as Petitioners Counsel, while Garba Pwul (SAN), Sunday Obende and J.J Usman are lead counsels to first, second and third respondents respectively.
The Matter has been adjourned to 25-29 Juné 2019 and 1st 2nd July respectively for the continuous taking of witnesses .
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