The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State, Mr. Peter Mbah has been declared as the winner of the governorship election held on March 18.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) state collation and returning officer, Prof Maduebibisi Iwe, who announced the result of the poll yesterday said Mbah gathered a total of 160,895 votes to defeat his main rival, Mr. Chijioke Edeoga of the Labour Party (LP) who got 157,552 votes, a difference of 3, 343.
“That Mbah of the PDP having scored the highest number of votes cast and having satisfied the requirements of the law is hereby declared the winner and he is returned elected,” Iwe declared.
Recall that LP’s state agent, Dr Eugene Edeoga had on Sunday during the collation of results raised an objection over the result of Nkanu east local government.
He had claimed that the result of the local government was heavily padded to manipulate the outcome of the election in favour of the PDP candidate.
He insisted that the result of the local government should be cancelled.
The PDP state collation agent, Dr Festus Uzo also made similar allegations about Nsukka area council where the LP candidate led with over 30,000 votes.
Consequently, on Monday following a series of protests from both supporters of both parties, the INEC national headquarters suspended the collation to review the results of the two local government areas in the issue.
However, yesterday, Iwe returned to Enugu to complete the process and announce a winner.
“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 LP 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.”
