The Independent National Electoral Commission has come under fire after declaring Orji Kalu winner of a senatorial election in apparent disregard of its own guidelines.
Mr Kalu, a former governor of
Abia State and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), was
declared the winner of Abia North Senatorial District election conducted
on February 23, 2019.
Mr Kalu polled 31,201 votes, according to Charles Anumudu, the INEC returning officer for the district.
The incumbent senator, Mao Ohuabunwa of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), trailed Mr Kalu with 20,801 votes in the election.
However,
Mr Ohuabunwa argued, and election and civic engagement experts agreed,
that the election should have been declared inconclusive without a
winner.
‘Arbitrary pronouncement’
According to a breakdown
of the result by INEC, 38,526 votes were cancelled during the exercise,
a number significantly greater than the margin of 10,400 between Messrs
Kalu and Ohuabunwa.
“The election should have been declared
inconclusive,” said election expert Samson Itodo. “There should have
been a re-run in the district.”
Mr Itodo said INEC’s guidelines,
drawn from Sections 26 and 153 of the Electoral Act, required a
by-election when the margin of victory between highest and second
highest votes scorers in an election is less than the total number of
cancelled voters.
“This should not be that hard, we saw the precedent in Osun State governorship election last September,” Mr Itodo said.
The
electoral umpire declared inconclusive, the governorship election that
held in Osun State on September 22, 2018, citing insufficient lead by
the PDP’s candidate in that election.
At the end of the collation
of votes, the PDP candidate, Ademola Adeleke, won majority votes of
about 254,698 votes while Gboyega Oyetola of the APC came a close second
with 254,345 votes. Both leading candidates had a difference of about
354 votes.
The commission explained that the total registered
voters in the five polling units where elections were cancelled is 3,498
votes. Since that figure was higher than the difference between the
votes of the leading candidates, a re-run election had to be conducted,
the INEC chief explained.
A re-run was held a few days later on September 28, and Mr Oyetola was declared the winner.
Similarly,
in Abia South Senatorial District, INEC declared the election
inconclusive after ballots were interrupted in some locations around
Aba, the state’s commercial capital. Although leading by a good margin,
incumbent Senator Enyinnaya Abaribe would have to wait until Saturday to
know whether or not he would be returned to the Senate.
Mr Itodo
said the senatorial election in Abia North should have similarly been
declared inconclusive, warning INEC to be wary of arbitrary application
of the law.
“We cannot have two different sets of electoral law,” Mr Itodo said.
As
the nation prepares for governorship and state parliamentary elections
on Saturday, Mr Itodo warned INEC officials to desist from declaring
results under duress from politicians.
“Officials are coming
under serious pressure to declare results without due process, and they
often cave in,” Mr Itodo said. “This is a serious problem.”
Mr
Itodo said politicians are exploiting a section of the electoral law
that prohibits INEC officials from reversing themselves on
pronouncements.
“The law says only the courts have the power to
reverse any pronouncement by electoral officers, politicians know this
and they are taken advantage,” he added.
Joseph Iloh, the
resident electoral commissioner in Abia, was unable to clarify the
decision more than a week after INEC had taken it, telling PREMIUM TIMES
the matter would be addressed later by INEC.
It was not
immediately clear whether INEC would reverse its decision before
Saturday and allow supplementary elections to hold in the district,
alongside several others were polls were cancelled on February 23.
A
spokesperson for Mr Kalu was unavailable for comments Saturday
afternoon. But an aide to the former governor said his principal should
not be made to explain a decision taken by INEC.
“We are aware of the cancelled votes,” the aide said. “But all enquiries should be directed to INEC and not my principal.”
Mr
Ohuabunwa argued that INEC cancelled over 31,000 votes in his home
local government area of Arochukwu, where he expected huge returns.
The
senator estimated about 76,889 votes were cancelled in across five
local government areas that make up Abia North Senatorial District by
INEC, but said even by the official figures of the commission, the
election should have been declared inconclusive.
Mr Ohuabunwa,
61, has been in and out of the National Assembly since 1999 when he was
first elected a member of the House of Representatives.
In 2015,
he was elected senator representing Abia North, defeating Mr Kalu, who
was the candidate of the Progressive Peoples Alliance, PPA, at the time.
Mr
Kalu, who still has a corruption case with the Economic and Financial
Crimes Commission (EFCC), challenged the results in court and received a
judgment for a rerun in early 2016.
Mr Ohuabunwa was again
declared the winner in the March 2018 by-election, and Mr Kalu
challenged the results again in court. The Court of Appeal, however,
affirmed the election of Mr Ohuabunwa in November 2017, sealing the
former governor’s fate.
Mr Kalu decamped to the APC ahead of the 2019 elections.
Legal
analyst Liborous Oshoma described the declaration of Mr Kalu as the
winner of the election as a “terrible anomaly,” calling for urgent
reform of the electoral process.
“There has to be a reform that
would make it difficult for officials to just announce results and ask
people to go to court,” Mr Oshoma said. “There have to be consequences
for electoral officers making arbitrary and undue pronouncements that
usually undermine the electoral process.”
“We can describe what
happened in Abia North as a terrible anomaly, but INEC has a window to
address it by conducting a by-election in the cancelled areas on
Saturday,” the legal analyst said.
Source:- Premiumtimesng
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