INEC SERVER SHOWS THAT BVAS WAS NOT DEPLOYED IN NKANU EAST - EDEOGA OF THE LP INSISTS ON VICTORY

Chijioke Edeoga

Barr. Chijioke Edeoga, the Labour Party, LP, candidate in the Enugu State governorship election, has urged that the results from Nkanu East Local Government Area be declared null and void.

Edeoga stated that while the total number of votes cast in IREV for Nkanu East was around 15,000, the PDP allotted nearly 30,000 votes to its candidate, Mbah.

Edeoga claimed in a petition to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, that the non-use of BVAS rendered the Nkanu East results null and void.

The total number of accredited results in the INEC server, he claims, shows that the PDP allocated votes to its candidate, Barr. Peter Mbah.

He said, "The just concluded Enugu State Governorship election is fraught with serial irregularities and fundamental flaws in the conduct of the Governorship election held on 18th March, 2023, particularly with respect to Nkanu East Local Government Area of Enugu State.

"We humbly wish to bring these irregularities to the attention of the Returning Officer for appropriate action as provided in the Electoral 

Act of 2022.

"The Electoral Act and guidelines made pursuant thereto provides that the Bi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is to be used for the conduct of the Gubernatorial and State Houses Election nation-wide.

"This is a mandatory requirement and failure to comply with these requirements renders any result of such election invalid. The Commission through several public service announcements reiterated the centrality of the use of BVAS in the accreditation of voters through their permanent voters cards and in the transmission of the results directly from the polling units to the INEC portal."

He further stated that the results compiled by the Local Government Collation Officer differed from those submitted to the INEC IREV portal.

"The unexplained discrepancies are as a result of non-usage of BVAS as mandatorily required by the Electoral Act and the guidelines of the electoral body, which led to the fraudulent allocation of votes to PDP by the officials appointed by INEC to conduct the election.

"No wonder the discrepancies between the votes they hurriedly uploaded to the IREV and the votes they presented for collation."

He told INEC that in numerous other polling units across the wards, the results plainly demonstrate that the votes awarded to the candidates outnumber the total number of PVCs collected due to BVAS non-use.

"It is evidently clear that the BVAS as required by the Electoral Act was not used for the voters' accreditation. By virtue of the Electoral Act 2022 Sec. 47 (3), the results from the entire Nkanu East should be cancelled.

"We therefore urge the Returning Officer to cancel the results of Nkanu East Local Government Gubernatorial election which was conducted without the usage of BVAS as mandatorily required by the Act."