Bauchi State office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has announced the suspension of the collation and subsequent announcement of the gubernatorial election results of Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area.
While briefing newsmen on Tuesday on the decision to suspend the collation exercise, Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ibrahim Abdullahi, disclosed that: “The court has restrained the Independent National Electoral Commission from continuing with the recollation and subsequent announcement of the result of Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area as it affects the Governorship election.”
The REC who addressed the Press at the Yakubu Mahmood Hall at the INEC headquarters in Bauchi added that: “What is going to continue is the scheduled 23rd March election (rerun) in some LGAs of the state that affected the entire results of the state gubernatorial election.”
He further said that the Commission has corrected the result of Ningi LGA from 25, 330 to the 2, 533 as directed by the INEC Headquarters following the recommendation of the fact-finding Committee adding that, “tomorrow, we are going to hear the substantive case. Tomorrow will determine our next move.”
It will be recalled that the Governorship Collation process was stopped in the early hours of Monday, March 11th, 2019, following the declaration by the State Returning Officer, Prof. Kyari Mohammed, adding that the election was inconclusive.
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Kyari Mohammed had, following the statement of the Collation Officer of Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area, Mrs Dominion Anosike, that armed thugs disrupted the process at Zwall and carted away the original result sheet and was made to announce the results under duress necessitating the cancellation of the entire results of the LGA.
Tafawa Balewa is one of the three LGAs in the Federal Constituency of the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, who won his reelection to the House in the last NASS election held on February 23rd.
Following this action and based on a report submitted by the Bauchi Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ibrahim Abdullahi, to the INEC Headquarters, the Commission sent a Committee to the state to state to investigate circumstances that led to the cancellation of the result of the entire Tafawa Balewa LGA.
The Committee led by the National Commissioner, Information and Voter Education, Mr Festus Okoye, upon the completion of its 3 days assignment, recommended that the result of Tafawa Balewa LGA be regenerated and re-collated so that the process can be completed.
Meanwhile, the state chapter of the ruling APC has commended INEC for abiding by the order of the Federal High Court stopping the resumption of collation of gubernatorial election results from Tafawa-Balewa LGA earlier scheduled to resume on Tuesday.
Chairman of the APC while addressing newsmen at the Campaign office on Tuesday said that “as law-abiding citizens, we remain bound by court order and we urge all our party loyalists, INEC and all affected parties to obey the court order and to maintain peace, law and order without any deviation.”
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