The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has suspended Saturday’s elections for the Senate and Port Harcourt Federal Constituency II in Port Harcourt City Local Government Area (PHALGA) in Rivers State.
INEC Resident Electoral Officer (REC) in Rivers, Johnson Sinikiem, announced the suspension Tuesday, bowing to pressure from agents of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and All Progressives Congress (APC) who failed to bend the PHALGA Collation Officer, Prof Victoria, with threats to her life, to outrightly cancel all National Assembly elections held Saturday in PHALGA.
The protests and pressures on the INEC Rivers REC had become fearsome after the Collation Officer for PHALGA had declared the PHALGA Federal Constituency 1 election won by candidate of the Labour Party (LP).
The REC, Sinikiem at the State Collation Center in Port Harcourt, yesterday declared, “INEC Rivers has suspended PHALGA II House of Representative and PHALGA Senate Elections for alleged irregularities. The Commission will conduct thorough investigation before further action will be
taken.”
INEC, he further noted, “has been notified of threat to life of the State Collation Officer for the Presidential Election in Rivers, Prof Teddy Charles Adias, Vice Chancellor, Federal University of Otueke.
“I urge the public and our critical stakeholders to know that the function of a State Collation Officer is just to collate results of elections conducted at the various Local Government Areas of the State.
“He is not a Supervising Presiding Officer nor a Presiding Officer that conducts elections at the polling units. He is only collating results already collated at the Local Government Area level that
cannot be changed except by the verdict of an Election Tribunal.
“We urge those concerned to seize forthwith in unleashing threats because his job does not involve accreditation, voting, counting, computation, validation etc ..of votes by parties at primary and Secondary levels.
“I draw attention of Security Agencies, especially the Election Commissioner of Police for Rivers State that is equally Co Chairman of Inter Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security to this attempt to truncate the Collation of Presidential Election result in Rivers State.”
Obi leads in Rivers with 2 LGAs results to go
Meanwhile, Obi who has won only five of the 21 LGAs so far collated, is polling a total of 170,052 with Bola Tinubu of APC who has won 13 LGAs polling 148,977 votes. Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abunakar with wins in three LGAs controlled by his men is placed third on the presidential table for Rivers with 83966 votes.
Obi’s overwhelming votes with win in just five LGAs so far came from Port Harcourt City LGA, Rivers LGA second highest voters population where the LP candidate raked 62451 votes against APC’s 5562 votes.
Results for Degema and highest polling Obio/Akpor LGAs are the only ones left to determine who won Rivers in the 2023 presidential elections.
