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FCT: INEC cancels Abaji Area Council senatorial result due to over voting

Civil society groups urge INEC to explain ‘step aside’ order on Abia REC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) FCT has cancelled the results of the Abaji Area Council senatorial election due to over voting.

Prof. Sanni Saka, from University of Abuja, the Collation and Returning Officer for Abaji, made this known while announcing the results on Monday in Abuja.

Saka cancelled the results after objections by some party agents because the numbers were not tallying .
Earlier, Saka had announced that the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 9542 votes while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had 9547 votes.
The Labour Party had 1789 votes while the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) had 43 votes .
” The total registered voters are 66201, accredited are voters 21473 while the total
valid votes are 21112.
“The number of rejected votes are 530, total votes cast are 21373,” he said
Saka, however, said that INEC would decide if there would be another election in Abaji and when.
Mr Sulieman Ango ,the APC Party agent, said that he called for the cancellation of the results because of some discrepancies in number .
“I personally moved for the cancellation of the election of the Abaji Senatorial election and the reasons are not far fetched.
“We were here yesterday, while announcing the results they doctored a political party that did not participate in the election and a number was giving to it. So, by implication it looked suspicious and may certainly lead to litigation.
“That is one, number two, today again after giving them 12 hours, they came with another controversy in terms of the numbers allocated to different political parties. So, we could not reconcile the number of registered voters, total votes cast, invalid and rejected votes .
“So, the result is full of contradictions and we are aware of the Electoral Act. So, in view of that it can’t be accepted.”
Ango said the result was suspicious and INEC needed to do the needful.
Another party Agent, Mr Abdulrahman Mohammed, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)also objected the result due to unaligning numbers.
Mohammed said there was the need to rework the results and ensure that it met the criteria for free, fair and credible elections that spoke to the mandate of the peope.

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